


the secret of distance

by dandelionlighters



Category: Legacies (TV 2018)
Genre: F/F, Happy Ending, Pining, Soulmate AU, Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-30
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2020-11-08 03:10:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 59,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20828423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dandelionlighters/pseuds/dandelionlighters
Summary: Soulmate AU where it physically hurts you to be away from your soulmate once you meet them.—“Is it worse than you thought it’d be?” the monster asks, ugly fingers wrapped around the prison bars.“Yes.” Hope swallows heavy, a mouthful of dreadful misery itching against the back of her throat. She coughs once and paints her hand with crimson blood.The monster laughs—a wicked, terrible sound—and all Hope can think about is the fact that Josie’s with her mom in Europe, thousands of miles away from her, and Hope can’t fucking breathe.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> “Now I have learned the secret of distance. Now I know being close to you was never about the proximity.” 
> 
> —Lang Leav

“Hope?”

“Hope? Are you okay?” Alaric calls out again. He finds the tribrid a couple of feet away by the treeline, bent over a bushy plant with her hand over her stomach. They had just finished cleaning the dragon’s remains when he noticed she was missing. 

“Hey,” she murmurs, quickly attempting to disguise her moment of weakness. 

“What’s wrong?” Alaric asks, his voice taking on the worried-dad tone it usually carries next to her. She almost rolls her eyes. 

“Nothing,” Hope lies, the truth crawling right beneath her skin. She absentmindedly wonders if she could ever tell anyone about what's truly bothering her. “I’m just not feeling well.” 

“Not feeling well? You didn’t even hear me come up behind you,” Alaric says, and he’s right. Hope hasn’t been able to focus lately, hasn’t been able to function right ever since they started going on these stupid monster missions.

“I guess—“ she almost says it. Almost says that that they’re too far away from Josie, and that she can’t catch her breath completely. That the agony of the distance between this forest and the school is too large for her bones to settle correctly. That she won't feel right in her own skin until they get back to Josie. “Can we just go home?” 

“Yeah,” Alaric nods, patting Hope on her shoulder in a way that soothes and burns her all at once. He smiles, and all Hope can think about is how familiar the way his lips upturn is, how similarly the crinkle of his eyes matches to Josie’s.   
  


  
The man starts to leave in the direction of the car and Hope sighs in relief, the awful uneasiness in her veins decreasing some at the knowledge she’ll see her soulmate soon. 

Hope thinks it’s weird how instantly tranquility floods her when she finally gets back to the school a couple of hours later. The football game is already over, Hope knows, but she gets the urge to ask Josie all about it despite the fact that they barely talk, and the only time Josie even looks at Hope is when Lizzie’s arguing with her. It’s maybe the reason why Hope argues with Lizzie so much, but if anyone asked her, she would swear Lizzie started it. 

Hope makes it in time for dinner, but she finds herself wishing she'd never gone. She sits alone the entire time, her plate of macaroni and cheese left untouched. She spends her night constantly glancing around for Josie, who never shows up. A never-ending worry eats at her stomach and fills it with dread simultaneously. She decides to go to bed early when she realizes that her fingernails have dented half-moons into the wooden dining table, and that she's too jittery to be seen by anyone. 

She rounds the hallway to her room quickly, bumping into a random person when she turns a sharp corner. Well, not completely random. 

The sight of Josie causes apologies to come tumbling out of Hope's mouth, getting half-cemented in her throat, only some actually making it past her lips. She manages to shut up after a few seconds, and Josie hasn't even spoken yet. A rough beat of insecurity passes between them, neither sure of what to say next or how to escape the situation, and Hope finds herself examining the other girl during this time. Josie's wearing a pair of light grey shorts and a thin, white t-shirt, which is almost see-through in a way that has Hope looking away. Her hair is in a messy ponytail, her face scrubbed clean of make-up. 

"Hey," a voice sounds behind them, and Hope's heart thuds painfully in her chest. She turns around slowly to be met with Penelope Park, who was clearly meeting up with Josie or something.

Hope glances away and to the floor, feeling oddly hot, or maybe it’s not odd at all when something a lot like jealousy makes her heart grow tight in her chest. She suddenly feels a lot heavier than she had before. For God’s sake, it feels too much to even blink. 

Josie and Penelope had only started dating a week ago—and that same day Hope had ditched school and had ran around in the forest for hours as a wolf, the ground beneath her feet suddenly unsteady and distrusting. She had gotten in loads of trouble for disappearing out of nowhere as a result, and none of it had been worth it when she'd gotten back and seen that Josie hadn't even noticed she was gone. 

_You're my soulmate_, Hope wants to scream, _how could you not love me back?_

Hope wants to ask her how she doesn't ache like Hope does when they're more than a mile away from each other, how she doesn't crave her like Hope does every second, but the questions are futile because her soul bond is unrequited and she'll spend the rest of her life yearning after Josie in a way she could never return. 

Luckily, time had shifted weight since the moment she realized that Josie was almost her soulmate. Hope had even almost been able to forget that her love was unreturned, but it's more apparent than ever now, standing between Penelope and Josie as an inconvenience. 

An awkward beat passes where Hope doesn't say anything, just continues walking straight like she hadn't been in the hallway at all, and when she reaches her room she slams the door so hard cracks rise up to the ceiling. 

When the tribrid finally goes to sleep that night, the uneasiness from hours ago gone and replaced by the ache of desire, she closes her eyes and sees brown eyes and pouty lips against the lids of them. She breathes deeply, the air getting stuck in her chest, and finds peace in her memories. 

_“Dad, what’s a soulmate?” She’s barely five, and her father is back from one of the many trips he always goes on. She hasn’t seen him in a while, and the pain from it is always there but never lasts._

_She’d originally heard the word from her Aunt Rebekah, and had been curious ever since. _

_“Hmm,” he says, his short beard scuffing against her face as he pulls Hope into a hug. He doesn’t let go for a while. _

_“It’s your always and forever,” he tells Hope, something like humor in his voice._

_“Does everyone get one?” Hope asks, a big-crayon smile on her lips. Something falls on her father’s face, a furrowing of his brows, a hollowing of his cheeks._

_“Yes,” he says, but it doesn’t sound quite right, and Hope wants to desperately ask him why. “But sometimes, your soulmate is not your own. Does that make sense, little one?”_

_“Yes,” Hope nods, but she thinks it doesn’t really make sense at all. How can one be destined to another but they’re not fated to the other? _

_“And it hurts to be away from them. That’s how you know for sure that they’re your soulmate,” he adds, but Hope thinks he’s not talking to her. He’s looking at the wall, far away from the conversation even though his body is in the room with her. She wonders why he seems so sad._

_“Oh!” Hope suddenly gasps, making an easy connection. “Like when you’re gone and I miss you!” _

_“Yes,” her father agrees, his hand coming to rest on top of his heart as he chuckles. His fingers drum against his chest, feeling something Hope doesn't yet understand. "Exactly like that." _

Over a decade later, Hope learns that the pain of distance is nothing like that. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.” 
> 
> —Arthur C. Clarke

Josie and Penelope walk into the dining hall the next morning holding hands, and Hope’s heart shudders once, twice, before breaking altogether. 

She leaves the hall almost immediately after seeing that, arriving to her first class of the day almost half an hour early. There’s a pressure building up behind her eyes that’s a little too unpleasant for her to handle, and she wipes at them angrily. She considers giving herself the day off but decides against it, even though there's no point since she has all her boring classes this week. The school switches the student's schedules back and forth every other week to break up the monotony, so today she doesn't have any classes with Josie. She could just ditch the entire day, but she know it'll piss off Alaric if she skips out. 

It’s for this reason that Hope goes to all of her classes, pays attention in each one and doesn't fall asleep in Latin like she usually does. She doesn't go to lunch or dinner, residing in the library for much of the evening. 

“Hey, Hope,” MG greets her, when it’s much later and her head is glued to the back table in the library. She can barely lift it off, she’s so tired. She hasn’t been able to keep her eyes open long enough to forget the way Josie and Penelope had held hands in the morning. Every time she closes them a flash of the monster she’s been trying to bury appears, and she doesn’t know if she can control herself for much longer. She can swear she sees flashes of yellow in her vision every time she blinks. 

“Hey,” Hope says back, too exhausted to maintain her usually stoic, isolated nature. 

“It looks like you could use some sleep,” he comments, pulling the chair across from her out but not taking a seat in it. Hope sits up slowly from her position against the table, straightening her shoulders out in a failed attempt to keep some of her composure. 

“Or a vacation,” Hope mutters, wondering how far she could get before the pain of distance grabs her and strangles her back. She pictures beaches and forests—neither of the images making her happy because she knows she could never enjoy anything without Josie.

“Oh, that reminds me! Mister Saltzman actually sent me here to find you!” MG chuckles nervously, and Hope’s chest twinges in hurt that she was approached not as a friend, but for another errand. It shouldn’t hurt, of course. She has no friends and the only people she talks to are adults. “Lizzie and Josie are visiting their mom in Europe this Friday, so he’s gonna need you to step up while they’re gone...” 

Something like cold-hot panic sparks inside of Hope, just beneath her skin. It sends a fire up her spine and makes her breath catch dangerously in her throat, until she feels as though she is burning and suffocating all at once. 

The rest of MG’s words are drowned out by the rush of air that flies by Hope’s ears and deafens her. She hears nothing past: _Josie is leaving, Josie is leaving, Josie is leaving _you—

“What?” she asks, but not for want of an answer. She knows that her voice sounds rough in all the wrong places, but she can’t seem to control it. She can already feel her stomach twisting with the familiar pain of what’s to come, can already feel her lungs shaking with the intimate ache that has built its home in her chest these past couple of years. 

“Oh, I said, ‘The twins are visiting their—‘“

“They can’t do that.” Hope is speaking, but the other Hope is far away and another person is talking altogether. 

  
  
MG frowns, clueless.

“Well, I think Josie told me they already bought the plane tickets, so I think they should be fine,” he says slowly, his easy-going character far too naive for the situation. 

Hope wills herself to shut up, but her heart is scraping against her throat with every beat, and she finds sounds coming out of her mouth frantically. She vaguely wonders if she’s choking. 

“N-no, she can’t go. It’s too far away. It’s too far away.” She’s not making any sense, she knows—God, she _knows—_but the words are not her own. They’re the words of the one-sided soul bond deep within her essence, right beneath her magical core—embedded into every single _fucking_ thing she’s done in the past four years. 

“I don’t understand,” MG says, but how could he? How could he understand how Hope’s hands shake the second Josie is out of her sight? How could he understand the way Hope’s ribs creak like faulty floorboards whenever Josie walks past her? How could he understand the subtle discomfort that eases its way into her bloodstream pint by pint when Josie isn’t near her? 

He can’t yet, of course, and Hope doesn’t know why she bothers with asking such obvious questions. Maybe that’s the point of asking them, she thinks. So that it doesn’t sting as much when you already know the answer. 

“It’s a full moon,” Hope whispers, the revelation like two hands around her neck. She'd completely forgotten about it before now, but the need to shift reminds her with a distinct prickle at her skin, her bones already feeling stiff with the desire to break them and reform them over and over again. She hasn't changed in a while, if she thinks about it. Not since a week ago, which is actually a lot for her considering she tries to shift every day. 

She’ll have to lock herself in the werewolf transformation spaces, she thinks. She won’t be able to take the pain from her bond or anger from her wolf, and she doesn’t trust herself enough to think she won’t go running thousands of miles to reach Josie when she’s not herself. 

“What?” MG asks, more clearly confused now. He’s just starting to understand that something is wrong. 

“This Friday. It’s a full moon,” Hope says, both hands on the table. Her uniform is messy now, the sleeves crumpled from stress and the collar wrinkled in a way that has Hope clenching her teeth. “What time is she leaving?” 

“In the morning, I think. Why? And what did you mean by, ‘It’s too far away’?” 

“Fuck,” she curses, the sound getting quickly carried away by the slight breeze in the library from the open window to her right. 

“MG, I mean—“ she clears her throat, a sad, pathetic timbre of her voice she can’t keep out. 

“I mean, it’s too far,” she repeats, pleading with him to get it so she won’t be so damn alone with this soulmate bond that won't leave her.

Hope can see the exact moment MG understands, can see the tension grow into his shoulders, the light leaving his eyes. There’s only one thing that limits the distance between people in this world, and he finally gets it. 

“Hope, is Josie your soulmate?” he asks in a whisper, disbelief written clear across his face. Hope meets his eyes for a long second before nodding with a single, stiff jerk of her head. MG’s mouth drops open with something that resembles a strangled, dying animal noise. 

The tribrid shuts her eyes, sits back down, and puts her head in her hands in resignation, unable to watch his reaction. 

“But she’s with Penelope. That doesn’t make any sense. Unless...”

“I haven’t told her,” she murmurs, wondering why she doesn’t feel better like she thought she would. She had assumed that telling someone—getting it off her chest—would relieve some of her stress, but if anything she just feels empty.

“What? That’s not fair to her, Hope. You guys are soulmates.” He seems angry suddenly; like it’s even his business even though they’ve barely ever talked before. He doesn’t have the fucking right. 

“No.” How can he still not understand? The tribrid takes a shuddering breath, something like a gasp and a whimper between her teeth. “I’m not hers.” 

He sits down, and they sit together, the silence of the library enveloping them. Hope lays her head back on the table, and MG just stares at a random bookshelf, wondering how he had never seen it before. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “But nothing makes a room feel emptier than wanting someone in it.” 
> 
> —Calla Quinn

_Hope hears a knock at her door, which is a little concerning since it’s past midnight. She walks to the door, alarmed but mostly sleepy, the soft pads of her socks the only sound in the room._

_She opens the door without preamble, immediately greeted by the sight of Josie Saltzman in short-shorts and a grey pajama shirt. Hope’s eyes briefly trace the prominence of Josie’s collarbone beneath her thin shirt before looking away quickly. She feels oddly flushed. _

_“Josie, what are you doing—“ she can barely finish her question before Josie pushes past her and shuts the door. _

_Josie starts to pace across the room, and all Hope can do is watch her. She keeps her eyes on the other girl as she walks to her and finds a seat at the end of it, since Josie is clearly distracted and the tribrid doesn’t think she’ll mind Hope sitting down. A slight breeze passes through the room and she crosses her arms, suddenly cold and itching for warmth, continuing to look at Josie in confusion. _

_“I just—I need,” Josie murmurs, but Hope can’t understand. _

_“What do you need, Josie?” she asks, sinking deeper into the mattress. _

_“Tell me I’m not crazy,” Josie says, coming to a stop in front of Hope. Hope is paralyzed and no sound comes out._

_“You don’t—“ Josie’s voice breaks and Hope’s heart melts. “You can’t feel this?” She gestures in the space between them and something like longing sits heavy on Hope’s tongue. _

_“No, no,” Hope hurries to correct her, standing up but Josie pushes her back to the bed. Hope reaches out, wanting to touch her but pulls away at the last second. She realizes she hasn’t been able to form a complete sentence since Josie walked in._

_“I’m leaving soon. Are you going to miss me?” Josie asks, something like desperation in her voice and Hope’s eyes widen. _

_Hope wants to scream, _yes_,_ of course_, but the other girl is already talking again, her words almost incomprehensible. _

_“It’s not—I can’t,” Josie stammers out, sitting down next to Hope, so impossibly close that their thighs end up somehow touching. So close that Hope can feel the warmth of Josie’s skin through her own sweatpants. _

_“You can tell me,” Hope provides, and something snaps within Josie’s eyes and then her lips are slamming onto Hope’s, effectively cutting off the gasp halfway through her mouth. Josie’s thighs lift up to slide into Hope’s lap as she leans in closer and wraps her arms around Hope’s neck, and Hope’s eyes snap open in shock when she realizes that Josie’s practically straddling her. _

_Lips and teeth override Hope’s senses until all she can smell and hear is Josie with her citrus shampoo and her quiet little sounds of satisfaction. Her brain almost can’t comprehend what’s happening—leaving a dizzying, lasting effect in its astonishment. She’s thrilled for their first kiss, the soul bond deep within her cheering in happiness. This is the closest they have ever been, and Hope will cherish every second of it. _

_Their mouths move together like they have never been apart in the first place, soul recognizing soul in a gentle, violent dance. _

_Hope automatically glides her hands higher up Josie’s thighs, receiving a breathy whimper that causes her fingers to tremble. The other girl leans back just enough to catch her breath and then her lips are moving somewhere else, against the shell of Hope’s ear, biting softy. Hope grips Josie’s thighs harder in response, fingers grazing a spot that causes Josie’s lips to part open with a moan, and she takes full advantage of the moment of weakness, leaning forward and dipping her tongue into the swell of the collarbone she had noticed earlier, and then higher, her mouth latching onto the right side of Josie’s neck—_

Hope wakes up shaking and sweaty. Her heart resounds loudly in her own ears, and when she moves, her sheets stick uncomfortably to her skin. There’s a thick knot of desire boiling in her stomach, and when she stares at the ceiling, all she sees is Josie. 

She’s ten minutes late to her training with Alaric, and she can’t think of an excuse when he asks her why. 

The entire session she can’t stop thinking about the dream and how real it had felt, and she gets her ass handed to her by old-man Ric five times before she leaves to shower. 

During breakfast, MG approaches her in the middle of her pancakes. 

“Are you sure Josie is your soulmate?” he asks, voice lowered to a hiss. 

Hope doesn’t even reply to that, rolling her eyes visibly and looking around to make sure no one heard. The dining hall is pretty empty, which has Hope sighing in relief. She glares at MG, wondering how the answer isn’t obvious.

“I’m sorry, I thought—I thought—“ MG stumbles over his words, not knowing how to phrase what he wants to say right. 

“You thought that the evil Hope Mikaelson couldn’t have a soulmate?” she says for him, because that’s what he means but there’s no nice way to say it. 

“N-no,” he stutters out, and Hope quickly interrupts him, if only so she doesn’t have to hear all of his pathetic excuses. 

“It’s okay,” she tells him, and a wave of silence falls over them as MG starts eating a bowl of oatmeal. 

“My dad had one, you know. A soulmate,” Hope says suddenly, completely by accident. MG looks up in surprise. “He only ever told me. His was one-sided, too.” 

“I’m sorry,” MG apologizes, reaching out to pat her arm awkwardly. Hope can tell he wants to ask something, but she doesn't help him form the question. 

“Who?" he finally asks, after a long moment of chewing on his soggy oatmeal. Hope's eyebrows furrow in not-quite confusion, but thought. "Who was his soulmate, I mean?” 

“Caroline Salvatore," she says simply, sadness leaking into her throat like a stream of water and nearly drowning her. 

_Like father, like daughter_, she thinks. 

MG doesn’t ask anymore questions. And when Hope goes to stab a piece of pancake with her fork, the plate shatters.

“It’ll be weird if I show up alone. Please?” MG asks her during lunch, still following her around for a reason she can’t explain. He’d just invited her to Josie and Lizzie’s movie night later in the evening. It’s supposed to be a goodbye until they come back next Friday, he had said. 

Hope still can’t believe they’re leaving for a whole week. She doesn’t think she’ll be able to survive this.

Last year, when Josie had left for spring break, Hope had puked blood for three days until Josie had come back early. She'd never been so relieved. 

“No, dude, it’ll be weird if I show up at all,” Hope says, reminding herself to stay in the present. 

“It’s not like it’s gonna be just the four us. A couple of other witches are going, too. It’s supposed to be really fun.” 

“Just bring Kaleb,” Hope tells him, shaking her head. 

“I don’t want to. He always brings blood bags everywhere he goes. It’s weird,” MG mumbles, and Hope almost laughs. She takes a few seconds to think about it, and when she speaks, she tells herself it’s only to fill the awkward silence. 

“Fine.” MG almost immediately jumps about five feet in the air in joy. “Wait. Is Penelope going?” 

MG frowns and says something underneath his breath that Hope’s ears pick up clearly. _Yes_. 

“I’m not going then,” she says, and MG pouts. 

“Please just think about it. I’ll pick you up at your room at seven tonight. Everyone’s wearing pajamas!” he calls out, leaving quickly before she can say even say no. 

“I’m not going,” she calls after him, but he’s already gone. She sighs, picking up her book bag and making her way to her next class when the bell rings. 

She doesn’t see Josie for the rest of the day, which disappoints her in an extremely overwhelming way that sits tight in her chest. It’s Thursday, and Josie’s leaving tomorrow morning, so the movie night might be the only way she’ll see the other girl for a whole week, and—

Hope finds herself wearing dark sweatpants and a hoodie when MG knocks on her door promptly at seven o’clock. She opens the door before he can even knock twice. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “‘It is a long way off, sir.’  
‘From what Jane?’  
‘From England and from Thornfield. And—‘  
‘Well?’  
‘From you, sir.’”
> 
> —Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Why are we in the woods?” Hope asks, stepping over a fallen long carefully. She had assumed that the movie night would be in an actual dorm room or something. 

“The party’s at the mill,” MG says, and Hope nods behind him even though he won’t see it. It’s slightly chilly, but neither of them feel it in their hoodies.

“Does Alaric know the twins are doing this?” she asks a little while later, stepping over a large tree trunk. 

“Of course not,” MG laughs, and Hope allows herself to chuckle softly. They walk in silence for a couple more minutes. 

“So, how are you going to tell Josie?” MG asks, out of nowhere, when they’ve just made it in front of the mill. 

“Tell her what?” Hope asks, eager to play dumb.

“That you’re her soulmate,” MG says like it’s obvious—and it _is_—his voice so above the whisper it’s supposed to be that the tribrid sends a scathing glare his way. He pouts. 

“Simple. I’m not,” she replies, looking around and seeing only darkness. She feels like she’s being pranked; there’s literally no one around. 

“You should do it tonight!” MG says excitedly, like he’s just had the best idea ever. “Beg her not to go! It’ll be so romantic!” 

“No.” 

“Fine.” 

MG runs his hands along the front of the barn, seems to find a handle and pulls, and then suddenly Hope’s vision is flooded with the light from a projector. She wonders why she couldn’t see it before. 

“One of the witches placed an illusion spell so we wouldn’t get in trouble,” MG explains without Hope asking, and she nods, her eyes finally adjusting to the harsh brightness. 

Inside, there are a couple of couches set up, a third of which are already taken. There’s some snacks on a table in the corner, which are being raided rather quickly. There’s another table dedicated for just alcohol, which Hope knows she’s going to visit sometime before the evening ends. 

About a dozen people are in the room, which makes Hope somewhat uncomfortable. She definitely thought there’d be more. She feels like she doesn’t belong here, and she already wants to leave. 

It’s the night before the full moon, and Hope hasn’t really felt it until now. Her ears are more receptive to her surroundings, her eyes calculating and aware. A prickling sensation is just underneath her skin, a weird tightness set between her shoulder blades. 

She looks around for Josie without realizing, but she doesn’t find her anywhere. Lizzie is surrounded by at least four other witches, and Hope and MG quickly find that they’re the only werewolf and vampire—respectively—here. 

Mean Girls is playing from the projector, but only a couple of people are actually watching it. Hope continues to wonder why Josie is nowhere to be found. 

“Hi,” a voice giggles lowly in her ear, causing Hope to turn around sharply.

Josie appears in front of her, almost out of thin air, and Hope can’t figure out how she had never sensed her in the first place. 

“Hey,” Hope responds, trying to sound casual, but the word comes out almost strangled. She backs up slightly, mouth running dry at the pretty sight of Josie Saltzman before her. The other girl only leans forward more, and then Hope realizes she’s drunk. 

“I didn’t think you’d come,” Josie whispers, like a tipsy secret. Hope suddenly feels insecure. The sentence itself is weird, but Hope doesn’t have enough time to analyze it. “Can I get you something to drink?” 

She’s dangerously close, and Hope absentmindedly wonders what the hell happened to Penelope. She’s nowhere to be seen, and it’s becoming harder to breathe. 

“No, thank you,” Hope manages, glancing towards MG who’s giving her a thumbs up while simultaneously juggling four beers. 

Hope tries to disengage from Josie even though talking to her is all she’s wanted to do for the past couple of years. She’s too afraid of anyone seeing her with Josie and making the connection because she’s just so damn obvious. Too scared of Josie making the connection when she’s with _Penelope_ and Hope is terribly _alone_. Too scared of what she might do to Josie when they’re this close and Hope can almost count the other girl’s dark, long eyelashes one by one. 

She takes a step back, but Josie only steps forward again, and Hope’s back meets the end of a couch. 

“Where’s Penelope?” she asks in a rush, her voice smothered by the lump in her throat. She swallows around it to no avail.

It’s not any of her business where Penelope is, of course, but this is all she can think about, and the words come out before she can stop them. 

“Oh. We broke up,” Josie tells Hope with an air of nonchalance, almost uncaring. The cup in her hand starts to sway precariously.   


At the words, a bubble of happiness blows up in Hope’s chest and she feels lighter than she has in days. The urge to shift just underneath her skin grows to a mere itch, and the corners of her lips rise of their own accord. 

“Yeah?” she says, unable to keep the smile off her face. She’s a terrible person, she realizes. Josie is clearly upset—upset enough to get drunk when the night _just_ started—and all Hope can think about is how she finally has a chance.

“Are you okay?” she tries a second later, guilt slipping between her fingertips. Her smile falls in shame. 

“Yeah. I’m fine...” Josie trails off, lowering her voice so it takes on a scandalous tone, and the bubble in Hope’s chest abruptly pops at what comes next. “She just found out my secret.” 

“Your secret?” Hope murmurs, a frown against her lips. The couch feels like a rock digging into her back, and she vaguely wonders if her heart is still beating. 

“Shhhh,” Josie quiets her, terribly inebriated and—

  
And Hope feels sad once again, eyebrows drawing together at the reminder that it’s barely two hours into the party and Josie is so obviously plastered. The brunette even places a shushing finger on Hope’s lips. It makes the tribrid want to pull Josie forward and relive the dream that had been so vivid in the morning. 

A flash of teeth and wandering hands falls across her mind, and she blinks quickly, as if—

As if she could ever hope to shake away those thoughts.   


Hope’s lips part, transfixed by the single digit, immovable in her position and absolutely powerless to shrug it away. Lizzie Saltzman breaks the spell soon enough. 

“Josie! Josie! Are you _drunk_?” Lizzie gasps, ripping Josie away from Hope with a hand on her elbow. 

“No.” Josie’s reply is instantaneous, the hand holding her red solo cup wandering behind her back. The laugh that escapes Hope’s mouth is quickly cut off by Lizzie’s glare.

“I can smell it on your breath, Josie, I’m not stupid,” she whisper-yells, and Josie’s nose wrinkles adorably as a pout forms on her lips. 

“And I know that there’s now way you would ever talk to Hope Mikaelson sober,” she continues, barely sparing a glance at the girl in question. Josie doesn’t spare a glance at her, either.   


Something like hurt makes its home in Hope’s heart, and she steps away quickly but slowly enough to not catch any eyes. The first step makes her breath leave her lips, the pain already setting in from distancing herself. She thinks the pain of Josie not defending her is even worse.

She leans against a wall from across the room, MG joining her not three seconds later. 

“So, how’d it go?” MG asks, handing her two bottles of beer. She downs one in seconds without even blinking. It slides down her throat easily enough, but she still has to swallow around the sting it leaves. 

“Don’t pretend you didn’t hear everything,” she tells him bitterly, once she’s done with the first bottle. She opens the cap of the next one, but MG uses his supernatural speed to stop her from finishing it.

“Slow down, damn,” he says, and she rolls her eyes before placing the bottle on a nearby table and crossing her arms.

“You know alcohol doesn’t affect us as much as it does humans, right?” She sighs. 

“Well, yeah, but you need to stay focused. We have a plan,” he mentions, and Hope frowns.

“No, we don’t,” she says, voice stern, her hand finding its way back to the beer on the table. “I don’t feel like being here anymore. Can we leave?” 

But she doesn’t want to leave. She wants to stay with Josie for the rest of the night because she’ll miss her later. She’s already missing her right now, damn it. Already missing her when she is of a couple of feet away. How can she ever hope to survive several thousands of miles? 

“Fine. Let’s just watch the rest of the movie and then we’ll go,” he says, a strange resignation in his voice that has her feeling bad. She glances at the movie that just started playing. 

“High School Musical? This is the opening scene,” she grumbles, but MG only shrugs and sits down on a free couch. She finds a seat next to him, and they stay like that for an hour. She pretends to watch the movie, but if you had tortured it out of her she still wouldn’t have admitted that she was really looking at Josie the entire time. 

They’re halfway through the movie when Hope gets a call. She stands up quickly upon seeing that it’s from Alaric, looking around for a quiet place. She heads to a small corner away from most of the noise. 

“What’s up?” she answers.

“Hey, Hope. We have a problem. Dorian and I just found another monster, and we need you to help us capture it and bring it to the dungeons,” Alaric says, his breathing slightly heavier than it should be and something like panic courses through Hope’s veins.

“Another monster? But Landon and Rafael aren’t even here anymore. Why do they keep coming to the school?” she remarks, fury coloring her cheeks and the tips of her ears red. 

“Oh, yeah, that’s another thing. We found Landon and Rafael, too,” Alaric tells her, almost like it had _just_ occurred to him to mention it. She sighs deeply, putting the phone away from her ear and letting the air leave her chest dramatically. “They were wandering around in the forest like a pair of idiots.” 

Hope nods along, because this all makes plenty of sense. 

“Okay, where are you?” 

Alaric gives her some coordinates and she agrees to meet with him soon.

“So, what are we dealing with?” she asks him, after a beat of silence as she’s unable to end the call. 

“Dorian and I think it’s a Timor Tunores,” he explains. “Otherwise known as a fear feeder, they prey on panic and can act and pretend to be human. They quickly identify a person’s fears and then manipulate people into a state of distress by using these fears against them. After, they feed off of their energy, leaving innocent people lifeless and comatose in some cases. It’s really important that we put this one away fast.” 

“Alright, I’ll be there in a minute,” she tells him, but she feels nauseous. She takes a step forward and finds herself shaking. She’s usually unafraid when it comes to these types of things, but something about this monster has dread lining her joints.

She wonders if the monster would be able to know how much she cares for Josie and how scared she is of her leaving. She wonders all about it, but just for a few seconds before letting the thought go completely. She can’t be scared right now. Fear is a mistake she can’t afford. 

“There’s been another monster. I have to go,” Hope says when she gets back into the noisy room. She’s talking to MG but looking at Josie, who’s still in the exact place Hope last saw her. Her heart bursts painfully when she finds Josie staring back at her, and Hope knows this will probably be the last time she sees her for a while, maybe forever. 

The soul bond is different for everyone, but for Hope it’s much worse. She feels unease mere miles away from Josie, and she doesn’t know what’ll happen when they’re continents away. Acid gnaws at her stomach in a sick, settling way that sticks between her insides and rips them apart gradually. She feels like she might die.

She’s stuck between staying for one more moment and running to Alaric, who is waiting for her with a dangerous monster. 

But she wants to savor the outline of Josie’s face, memorize the crinkle of her eyes, cherish the pout of her lips. The inside of her body is like wet cement, slowly drying, and she feels heavy and glued to the spot. She wishes for all moments to freeze, but time does not care and clocks do not wait.

A weird sort of anger courses through her, a desperate fire that pleads with her not to leave so she won’t be miserable later. Yellow meets the corners of her eyes and she blinks once, twice, and then it disappears. 

She glances away from Josie, wet cement in her throat and traces of yellow in her eyes.

Hope isn’t even surprised when she only makes it a couple of meters passed the barn, the contents of her stomach tumbling harshly out of her mouth in a puddle across the forest floor. 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “A monster that refused, sometimes, to behave like a monster. When a monster stopped behaving like a monster, did it stop being a monster? Did it become something else?”
> 
> —Kristin Cashore

The walk to Alaric isn’t very far, and Hope gets there soon enough.

  
“Hey,” she greets him and Dorian, frowning when her eyes catch sight of Rafael and Landon. Their betrayal still stings just underneath her skin.

“H-Hope, we wanted to apologize,” Landon starts saying the second he sees her, gesturing between Rafael and himself.

“There’s no time for that,” Alaric cuts him off, and Hope resists the urge to smile. “We lost the monster.”

“How?” Hope asks through clenched teeth. “It’s been five minutes since you called me.”

“These two got into a fight, which distracted Dorian and I, and gave the Timor Tunores enough time to make a break for it,” he explains, waving his hand in the direction of Landon and Rafael.

“So why are you still here?” Hope asks, not completely understanding why they haven’t tried to trap it again.

“We wanted to wait for you, and now that you’re here we have to move quickly,” Dorian speaks up from behind Alaric. “Alaric, Landon, and Rafael will split off that way and you and I will go this way.” He points in front of them, and Hope shakes her head.

“It’ll be faster if I go alone. You guys can pair up and I’ll call you if I find it,” she says, already walking away.

“I don’t think so.” Alaric stops her shortly. “It was already a risk having you meet with us here, and you don’t know anything about what this monster is or what it looks like.”

Hope raises an unimpressed eyebrow. 

“Then tell me.” She says it like it’s obvious, and Rafael goes to her defense.

“I think she’s right. It’ll be faster this way, and she’s more powerful than any of us combined,” he tells the rest of the guys, and the hate she had been aiming at him dissipates somewhat. He’s suddenly a lot less annoying to her. 

“Yeah, and if it’s really as dangerous as you warn then we need to take care of it quickly,” Hope adds, remembering the dozen of teenagers in the barn. She feels sick to her stomach at the possibility of Josie getting hurt. “We’re not the only ones out here tonight.”

She instantly regrets it the second it comes out of her mouth. She doesn’t want to ruin the twins’ movie night, but if she can convince Alaric to just let her deal with it instead of arguing then it might be a good idea to bring it up.

“What?” Dorian and Alaric voice at the same time, and Hope makes eye contact with Rafael and Landon.

“Yeah...some kids are throwing a party at the old mill...” She hesitates, but the words spill out all the same and Alaric hits her with a disappointed look.

“Hope...” he trails off, the tone of his voice dangerous. She reaches for the phone in her pocket.

“One second,” she says, turning around and dialing MG’s phone number.

He immediately picks up.

“Hey, MG, make sure no one leaves the barn until I text you in a little. It’s important. Thanks. Bye,” she says quickly and concisely, ending the call before he can even answer her.

“MG?” Alaric whisper-yells, betrayal evident in his voice.

  
  
“Okay, we’re getting distracted,” Dorian attempts, opening the book Hope hadn’t noticed he was carrying. “Here’s what everyone needs to know. The second you come close to it, you will feel slightly cold and empty. This is the biggest hint you will get that you’re near it. A Timor Tunores can impersonate any human, and usually it does so by identifying your fears and turning them into weapons. It can read your mind in the first minute it comes into contact with you, but doing this takes a lot of energy for them so you must deal as much damage as you can, as quickly as you can. If it isn’t pretending to be human, it will appear gray and gangly, almost like a wendigo.”

“Hope, the moment you think you’ve found it, notify Alaric or me. The boys and I will tell you if we do first.” Dorian closes his book, and Hope starts to walk backwards. She glances at Landon and Rafael, and she wonders if they’re scared. She feels something a lot like anxiety deep inside her own body, and when she makes eye contact with Landon it’s written clear in his eyes, too. He looks exactly how she feels. On edge. “Be safe.”

“Got it,” she says, turning around. “You, too.”

She throws it over her shoulder, but she doesn’t know if they ever hear her or not. Everyone parts ways, and the words get carried out into the night with the wind. After a couple minutes of walking, Hope can’t hear anyone’s footsteps but her own.

She’s just swatted a low-hanging branch when she feels a deep coldness seeping into her skin. She almost doesn’t recognize it, but a second wave has her shivering underneath her hoodie.

An unrelenting emptiness floods her system, and she feels heavy and light, somehow both at the same time. Fear inches up her back and settles on her neck, and the hairs there raise with goosebumps.

A twig snaps behind her and she turns around quickly.

“Josie?” The breath leaves her lungs all at once, and a warm feeling settles across her skin, thawing the ice that had been there not long ago.

She’s wearing the same thing Hope had last seen her in. Her arms are crossed, fingers gripping elbows for warmth. Hope has the instant desire to offer her jacket.

“What are you doing here? It’s not safe right now,” Hope tells her, stepping forward and reaching for the hem of her hoodie to take it off.

“I followed you out,” Josie supplies, her eyes set on the floor. “I-I wanted to—“

“To?” Hope’s hand stills from where it lies at her mid section.

“I wanted to make sure you were okay,” she finishes, wringing her hands in front of her. Hope wants to ask why she’s so nervous, but she’s ultimately touched and delighted at the fact that Josie cares for her. She can’t see the danger.

“I’m fine,” she nods. She feels star-struck. “Let me walk you back to the barn. It’s really not safe right now.”

“Why?” Josie asks, her eyebrows scrunching together in the way Hope adores.

“Your dad found another monster,” she supplies, after a moment of hesitance. She watches the other girl’s face for her reaction.

“Oh.”

“Yeah, so we should get going.” Hope grabs for Josie’s elbow and attempts to pull her along. Attempts. It doesn’t quite work, since Josie doesn’t move an inch, and Hope vaguely wonders why the other girl feels so fragile underneath her grasp. She radiates zero warmth even though she’s wearing a sweater. Weird. Hope blinks and the thought is gone.

“What’s wrong?” she asks, sensing that something is amiss. Not the right thing. Never the right thing, with Hope. 

“We should talk,” Josie says quietly, and Hope doesn’t even question why she doesn’t care about the monster much. She instantly skims through her memory wondering what she did wrong for Josie to want to talk to her.

“MG told me.” Hope’s heart drops to her feet. She takes a step back, disbelief painting her features.

“MG told you?”

She feels betrayed, feels the worst fucking fear of her entire life—subjected to Josie’s rejection without a chance to explain herself. This is not how she wanted this to happen. She had never wanted Josie to hear it from someone else.

Hope takes a deep breath, the oxygen expanding her lungs but she doesn’t feel any of it. She feels like she can’t breathe. She looks into Josie’s eyes and sees pity. Damn it. Josie pities her. She doesn’t love Hope. She never will. She will only ever pity her.   
  


  
Oh, _God_. 

Hope feels absolutely sick to her stomach.

“I’m sorry, Hope, but I won’t lead you on. I could never feel the same—“

Hope doesn’t hear the rest of her sentence. She can’t see a single thing. Her eyes are blurry from tears, and when she blinks they’re hot and unrelenting against her cheeks, burning a trail down her face.

She feels faint, like she could pass out at any second. She has a deep urge to throw up, a pounding headache hammering against her skull. The usual pain from being away from Josie is still here, too, which doesn’t make much sense if Hope could really think about it. But she can’t.

“Hope!” someone yells behind her, and she barely has the strength to turn around. It’s Rafael, and he’s holding Alaric’s crossbow. He’s aiming it right at Josie. “Get away from it!”

She wipes at her tears, immediately stepping in front of Josie. “What the hell are you doing, Raf?”

“Move, Hope!”

Someone tackles her from the side, and she hits the floor before she can even feel the pressure of someone hitting her. She breathes and smells Alaric’s cologne, clean but sharp. She shoves him off of her, but the damage is already done and Rafael has already shot the arrow. It flies and hits Josie right in the chest, and Hope sees everything in terrible, ruthless panic.

“Josie!” she screams, fucking _screams_ like the name has been wrenched away from deep within her throat and sent out of her mouth as a sob.

She stands up quickly, but Josie isn’t Josie anymore, and the thing in front of her morphs into something disgusting. It smells like burnt skin and death, an ugly hand reaching out to take the arrow out of its chest.

It chuckles—a deep, miserable sound—and Hope’s eyes widen. She realizes what’s happened instantly. Offensive magic hits her lips at once.

“Phasmatos incendia!” The monster catches on fire almost immediately, flames lighting up the forest violently. Hope doesn’t stop.

“Ossox!” The cracking of bones resounds loudly in the forest, something that could be a scream is ripped from the Timor Tunores’ mouth.

“Lihednat dolchitni! Phasmatos superous em ani—“

Someone tugs her back.

“Hope! That’s enough,” Alaric growls, effectively breaking her out of her spell. “We need to interrogate it, not kill it!”

His eyes snap to hers, pleading with her to calm down, and the fire in her eyes dies just as her shoulders slouch. God. What has she done? What will she do? Fuck. _Fuck._

With the last of her energy, Hope casts an imprisoning spell and almost falls, her overuse of magic and incident with the monster straining on her.

Landon places a supporting hand on her arm, but she swats it off.

“I’m fine,” she shrugs, humiliated and unable to make eye contact with any of the guys.

“It’s okay,” Landon tries to say, but it’s not. They all must know now, and it’s impossible to deny what happened.

When she looks away, she accidentally makes eye contact with Alaric. His eyes are sad as he stares back, and for the first time, the tribrid loses all that she could ever be Josie’s soulmate.

“I’m sorry,” Alaric tells her later, when they get back to the school and the monster is tucked safely away in one of the underground werewolf transformation spaces.

“Me, too,” she says, itching for him to forgive her for something she can’t control.

She stays awake the entire night, attempting to savor the comfort of her soulmate being near while it lasts. The morning comes too fast.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “And all I loved, I loved alone.” 
> 
> —Edgar Allan Poe

Hope gets out of bed in a panic. She had missed the half-hour alarm she had set at three, and it’s five o’clock. The twins could be gone by now, and her training session with Alaric starts in thirty minutes. 

So, she _panics_. She feels silly, breathing heavily and hyperventilating in a room all by herself, unable to control the knot in her stomach and her chest shaking for air. 

It’s almost funny, how quickly she feels like her entire world is ending. Like Earth as she knows it is gone. Almost funny. But it’s not. She sees months ahead of her where she’s miserable and Josie is fine and oblivious. It’s not funny. Not really. 

She sees a future where Josie isn’t in it, and an overwhelming feeling like fear buries itself into her heart and cuts on the way back up. 

She’s half-stumbling out of her room when she realizes that she’s not in any _real_ pain. 

Josie is still in the school, and everything is fine, she tries to tell herself. 

Everything is fine.

Her eyes are bloodshot when she glances into the mirror in the hallways. Her hair is barely brushed through and she looks terribly disheveled. She finds it doesn’t matter. 

She needs to see Josie before she leaves. She has the sudden urge to beg her to stay, but deep down she knows she’ll never go through with that idea. 

She bumps into Alaric a minute later.

“Hey,” she greets, trying to keep her voice calm as she continues to walk. 

“Wait up,” he calls after her, and she pauses for just a moment. Inside, she’s screaming. Inside, she wants nothing more than to keep walking and find her way to Josie before the other girl leaves. She feels like she doesn’t have time for this. Panic rises up in her throat once again. 

“Josie and Lizzie are leaving in—“ he looks at his watch, “—ten minutes. I was just on my way to find you. Do you want to come say goodbye with me, before our training session?”

She pauses again, longer than momentarily. Their eyes meet and he raises his eyebrows in emphasis. She almost rolls her eyes. 

For a second, Hope doesn’t even care that he knows. It feels like everyone knows now, but she’s content with this information because no one will say anything at all. Or, at least, they wouldn’t dare. She might just kill them all if one of them spills her little secret. 

“Yes,” she says, very, very quietly. So quietly that Alaric has to lean in to hear her. His brain recognizes the sound a second later, and he nods before walking them in the other direction.

They don’t talk again, and before long they’re in the front of the school. 

Her breath leaves her body the instant she sees Josie, who’s loading luggage into a van of some sort. She leans back and puts her hands on her hips, and Hope is so, so relieved. She almost smiles. 

“Daddy, I really didn’t want my last memory of this place to be Hope.”

Oh, right, Lizzie’s here, too. 

Hope visibly rolls her eyes, but the comment is enough to make Josie notice that Hope is present. 

Hope makes the mistake of glancing at her for a little too long and their eyes meet. Josie waves her fingers in an adorable way that almost has Hope waving back. She just nods in recognition, trying to retain some of her cool composure. It doesn’t quite work. 

“Spare me the dramatics, Lizzie, you’ll only be gone a week,” Alaric says, pointedly looking at Hope. “Besides, Hope’s just here to say—for our training session in a couple minutes...”

He trails off, voice a little higher than it should be, and Lizzie narrows her eyes at Hope. For her part, the tribrid just blinks on the outside, chin tilted up with a blank expression. On the inside, she’s simmering with anger towards Alaric Saltzman. He has got to be the most suspicious man alive when it comes to lying to his daughters. 

“Right,” Lizzie affirms, slowly, still looking dubious. Josie herself hasn’t said a single word. “Well, bye, daddy.” She reaches out for a hug, and Josie gets in line behind her. Alaric and Lizzie exchange words for a short moment, but Hope doesn’t eavesdrop because she already feels like she’s intruding. Lizzie glances at Hope, menace written across her face. 

“Bye,” Hope says lamely, just to spite her. Lizzie starts to walk away, throwing a glare at Hope over her shoulder. 

“Don’t talk to me.” It’s just the right amount of spite that Hope wants to laugh. 

“Goodbye, Dad, love you,” she hears Josie say, reaching out to hug her father like Lizzie had. Hope looks down at the floor, suddenly shy. Why is she even here? 

Her fist clenches, and she feels like her insides are being scraped with a knife. She wonders how easy it would be to reach out and not let Josie go. Would she stay if Hope asked her to? Would she— 

Fear suddenly grips at her lungs, and Hope looks up to see Josie approaching her with a shy expression on her face. Her words catch in her throat, aching beneath the confines of her teeth. 

“Bye, Hope,” Josie whispers softly, hesitating a little before leaning forward. She seems weirdly uncertain, but Hope can’t quite put her finger on why. 

_ What is she doing?  _

Hope only has a second to realize that Josie Saltzman is hugging her. Actually fucking arms-around-her, gripping-her-softly, hugging her. Hope only has a second to comprehend it before Josie pulls away, a blush on her cheeks and a pleased smile on her lips. 

“Bye,” Hope chokes out, the soulmate confession crawling up her throat and grazing against her tongue. Josie turns away, that same, shy smile turning up both corners of her lips. Hope wills her to look back. 

She doesn’t. 

Moments later, Hope can still feel the imprint of Josie’s body against her own, the way she had wrapped her arms around Hope’s waist. And the way Hope hadn’t hugged her back. 

An anger boils in her belly that makes her sick to her stomach. Josie gets into the car, and the second the door shuts a sensation erupts against Hope’s neck like a hot brand. She _burns_.   


“Was it enough?” Alaric asks her, as they watch Josie and Lizzie drive away. 

“No,” Hope tells him, acid in her mouth. She rubs at her aching neck. Feels like she might faint. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this is so short :( i’ve been so busy with school and work, but i should have another chapter posted this weekend :)


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “But what if the monsters come?”  
“Fancy.” Kit looked away from the drama to stare at her sister, surprised. “We are the monsters.” 
> 
> —Dia Reeves, Slice of Cherry

“Why are you here?” It probably hasn’t even been three hours since Josie and Lizzie left, barely two since she had finished training with Alaric, but Hope has already decided pretty quickly that she’s not going to attend any of her classes today. Instead, she’s here in the dungeons, interrogating the latest monster from Malivore. 

It’s hard, she thinks, controlling herself. She can’t trust herself not to lunge at the monster and get revenge for everything she had dealt with last night. Fake-Josie’s rejection is still fresh in her mind, and when she allows herself to think about it for too long, she forgets that it hadn’t been real. 

To make matters worse, the full moon is tonight, and she’ll be not-quite forced but compelled to change when the clock reaches twelve.   
  


Even now, hours before, Hope can feel the power of her wolf pulsating throughout her body, can feel the subtle strength when she clenches her fists. But she can also feel the hole in her stomach where Josie’s absence lies. It sits there dully, a sign that Josie isn’t really all that far yet, but Hope knows that the worst is yet to come. 

In a few hours, when Josie is thousands of miles away, the true pain will hit, and Hope will be forced to endure the relentless agony of it. But for now, Hope has a monster to question.

The Timor Tunores itself hasn’t responded to her last five inquiries, but Hope doesn’t mind that much. She rather wouldn’t be talking to it—the monster’s previous victory over her too fresh in her mind—but she needs a distraction. 

“I thought that was rather obvious,” it bites out finally, at last, causing Hope to lean away in surprise, taken aback.   
  


  
It’s terribly dark in the room, so much so that she can barely make out the monster’s shapeless form. What she can tell from the dim lighting is that it’s ravenously skinny—inhuman ribs poking out of a grey stomach. Its limbs protrude hideously, layers of skin torn and shredded over one another. 

“Yeah, yeah,” Hope realizes herself a second later, snaps out of her surprise. “You’re another monster here for the knife, blah, blah, blah. I’m asking why.” 

Another answer doesn’t come for what seems like a while, but really is only a minute or so, and Hope relaxes from her side of the bars. She dimly registers that it’s freezing cold. The biting laugh of the monster makes a shiver run down her spine. She hugs her elbows, unbidden. 

“You call me a monster, yet you stand here before me—a vampire, a werewolf, and a witch,” the monster bites out, and Hope can’t figure out exactly where its mouth is right now. Last night it had been at the front of its head, but now she’s sure it’s at the back of its neck. 

Hope doesn’t bother replying, because the Timor Tunores doesn’t look done talking. She had forgotten that it knew everything about her, and the creeping realization that it had been able to find it all out in barely a second settles across her shoulders uncomfortably. Hope rolls them to relax herself, shifting her weight from one foot to the other where she stands. 

“Sure, you could make the argument that you’re not a vampire thus far, but that is only because you haven’t yet died.” The voice is almost contemplative, and a red-hot fury heats Hope’s blood. “You’ve killed, though, haven’t you?” 

Misery flashes across her eyes like a golden haze. She gulps down the thick swallow of it in her throat to no avail. She opens her mouth to speak, but is quickly interrupted. “How different are we, truly?” 

Hope’s eyebrows knit in anger, but she can’t get a single sound to form in her throat. She feels absolutely paralyzed, except for the phantom heart shaking in her rib cage. It beats and beats and _beats_ and the tribrid almost can’t take it. She frowns, if only because it hurts too much to hide it. 

“Exactly. We’re the same you and I. We both kill, and we both haven’t yet died,” the Timor Tunores continues, and, all at once, words come spewing out of Hope’s mouth. 

“We are not the same,” she growls out, her hands reaching out to bang against the dungeon bars. “You kill to keep yourself alive, I killed to keep my family alive.” 

“I see no difference.” It looks unaffected, which only serves to make Hope more irritated. She forces herself to calm down. Pity, that it doesn’t work. 

“Your friends and family, that’s what keeps you alive. You act like you are selfless, but what interest is there to protect them if not for your own?” 

The words probably aren’t even remotely true, but a thick fog of uncertainty wanders across Hope’s mind, and suddenly she can’t find the words to deny anything at all. 

“Whatever,” she grumbles in a snarl, her eyes flaring gold. She blinks twice and the yellow tint to her vision disappears. The bar bends underneath her dangerous grip, and she takes a step back, shutting her eyes. “I’m gonna get lunch.”

“Enjoy yourself,” she adds, if only to spite the monster, but she imagines that she just sounds immature and petty. She leaves a second later, traveling up the staircase and all the way to the dining hall. She doesn’t really feel hungry, but she knows it’s important to eat before the full moon. 

MG waves her over, and she sits across from him almost painstakingly. She had been hoping to grab something quickly and then eat alone in her room. He looks at her, gaze expectant and open, and she raises her eyebrows in a silent question.   
  


A second passes, and then he answers. 

“So...Josie hugged you today! That’s so exciting!” He grins, almost jumping with elation. “How do you feel?” 

“What?” Hope’s face contorts into confusion. How had MG seen that? “How do you even know?” she adds, trying to keep the anger out of her voice. She’s pretty sure MG hadn’t been there.

“Oh,” the boy laughs nervously, waving his hand in front of his face in an offhanded gesture as he begins to rant. “I watched you say goodbye from my room. You know, I’m on the second story. It’s a pretty good view from up there, plus my super hearing helped—“

“Okay, pretending that isn’t creepy at all, what did I say about speaking of this in public?” 

“Not to,” he murmurs lowly, looking down, and Hope pins him with another stare. “Sorry.” 

“It’s fine, just—“ She’s cut off by a deep stabbing in her chest and in her head, and she groans quietly, bringing a hand up to the place where her heart is and her other up to her forehead. She can almost feel both pulses pounding underneath her palm. 

“Are you okay?” Before Hope can blink, a hand places itself on her shoulder, and she finds that MG has used his super speed to come around the table and sit by her side. 

She can barely register him, though. The sudden hammering of her brain against her skull is too distracting to turn away from, and she groans out again. Just as she thinks the pain will never stop, it gets better, just a little. Just enough that she can lean forward and breathe, just enough that her aching lungs start to pull in air.   


Her breathing evens out as she gets used to the feeling, but make no mistake, the pain never  lessens. After a few long, unrelenting moments, she becomes better at managing it. 

“I’m fine. I’m fine,” she says, but she sounds anything but. Her voice comes out in something between a gasp and a whimper, winded and choked. Fuck. Now it feels like she’s being kicked in the stomach. The suddenness of it passes after a second, but the feeling stays there all the same. 

  
  
MG doesn’t say anything right away. Hope turns away from him, trying to hide the way her bottom lip trembles. She sweeps her tongue over it and swears she tastes blood. 

“I gotta go,” she tells him, not meeting his worried, searching eyes. “I have to talk to the Malivore monster we captured yesterday.” 

“Is that a good idea?” MG asks, drawing his eyebrows together and setting his jaw. His concern strikes Hope as odd. She raises a lone eyebrow in his direction, and he speaks again. “In your condition, I mean.” 

“It doesn’t matter,” she ultimately decides, despite the ache tormenting her entire body. She wonders if Josie’s landed, or if she’s still on the plane. It feels like there’s no way she hasn’t left yet.   


She waves goodbye to MG and gets up slowly in order to catch her breath right, the movement dizzying her just a little. When she looks up, she’s immediately met with the curious, venomous eyes of Penelope Park.

The other girl looks angry, but at the same time, a bit like she’s desperately trying to understand something. Sad, too. Not unlike the look MG had given Hope when she had told him her secret. As if everything he thought he knew had been destroyed right in front of him. 

Hope turns her attention away and shrugs off the look, grabbing a couple of protein bars and walking back towards the exit. The feeling of Penelope’s eyes on her back stays the entire way there. 

She hurries to her room, eating quickly, and then she attempts to do some homework, but she can’t get her mind to focus completely and she gives up rather fast. 

Her legs feel like they’re bolted to the floor as she makes her way towards the dungeons once again. She allows her footsteps to sound loudly in the quiet space, but the Timor Tunores makes no move to acknowledge her. It stays quiet for the next few hours, the monster once again upholding its oath of silence despite Hope’s relentless bombardment of questions. 

By six o’clock, she still hasn’t gotten anywhere. And she feels herself growing weaker by the second. The cold the monster is emanating remains, biting relentlessly at her heels and crawling up her spine. She shivers, and swears that she hears the monster laugh. She knows that their close proximity is affecting her in a way that isn’t completely healthy—that she should leave before something bad happens. Alaric had warned her that the Timor Tunores would suck the energy out of every room it stands in, but she won’t leave without achieving anything.

“Answer me!” she finally yells, after the seemingly hundredth question left unanswered. The simple words take a lot out of her, and she bends over panting without thinking. 

“It’s so difficult to watch you act like you have power over me,” the monster whispers, almost tauntingly. Hope resists the urge to throw up all over the ground. She wonders how far Josie is away from her. Surely she must be in Europe already. It feels like she’s on the other side of the world. 

“What you’ve forgotten, however, is that I’ve already won.” Hope’s lips pull up in a sneer, annoyance spiking up her heart rate. She doesn’t have time for this. The monster is only trying to get a rise out of her, she knows, but she can’t seem to calm herself down long enough to take a lasting breath. 

What’s worse, maybe, is that she can hear her wolf growling at the back of her mind, screaming for vengeance. The pounding in her head is too much. Too much. Worse than it had been before.

God, she wishes Josie was here. This would go a lot better if she could breathe for just a second, if she could be herself and not have to worry about the soulmate bond causing her entire body to throb with anguish. 

“What was her name?” the monster implores, voice taking on a false hint of curiosity . Hope has a feeling it already knows. She coughs and tastes blood. If she runs her tongue over her teeth and swallows crimson, she ignores it. “Josie? Was it?” 

Hope Mikaelson snaps. 

“Don’t fucking say her name,” she growls, throwing herself forward. She opens the jail door nonverbally, storming right up to the monster and tossing it to the side. It grunts, hitting the space between the concrete floor and wall hard. Hope locks the door a second later. Locks herself in. “You don’t have the fucking right.” 

“Does she _know_?” it asks, feigning concern. It looks up at her, sitting from where Hope threw it on the floor. Hope thinks she might fall over herself. She’s so nauseous from that small action. She forgets all about revenge. “That you spend every waking moment agonizing over her? That you fantasize about her in your dreams?”

“What about the small fact that you mistook me for her in less than thirty seconds? Do you really know her _at all_?” 

“I do,” Hope affirms, but the words leave as a desperate plea and she finds herself wondering the same. How embarrassing. The tribrid shakes her head, looking down at the monster in disdain as it pulls itself up. “You don’t get to ask anymore questions. This is irrelevant.” 

_Keep a calm head_, Hope tries to tell herself, but deep down she knows her head hasn’t been calm for a while. It’s been polluted by thoughts of Josie for the past couple of years, distressed and tormenting itself over a one-sided soul bond. 

“I see right through you, _Tribrid_,” it smiles, and Hope can see clearly now that the monster’s mouth is on the side of its neck. She wonders if it has always been there, or if that’s just a part the monster chose to shape-shift. “You’ve been limping since you walked in. Every time I talk, you flinch. Every time I mention Josie, your breathing gets heavier and you reach for your side. You’re in pain, but you refuse to show it. You feel as though you have no control, but won’t admit it. You’re scared, but you pretend that you aren’t.”

It’s standing up completely now, and from this angle Hope has to look up. It’s taller than her, much more menacing than it had been in the forest. She feels exhausted. She can’t remember how she had survived three days away from Josie last spring break. She’s already in so much pain. 

“I’m not scared,” Hope says, trying to bring all her courage and personality into those three words, but her chest deflates and her lungs sting with false bravado. She tries to take a deep breath for strength, but it cuts on the way down and chokes her as it reaches her throat.   
  
  


_It would be so easy to just lay down and pass out_, she thinks. _So easy. Too easy. _

The monster walks slowly passed Hope, fingering the jail poles bolted to the floor. Hope thinks it knows that she’s close to giving up. How long has it been since Josie left? She tries to remember, but it’s getting harder to. She feels like she’s been in this cell for days.   


  
Has it really only been a few hours? 

“It must be awful. The pain,” it comments, lingering by the poles. Hope hears a singlec sharp claw scrape loudly against the metal. Hope feels venom pool in her mouth, her heart ringing in her ears. 

“Is it worse than you thought it’d be?” the monster asks, ugly fingers wrapped around the prison bars.

“Yes.” Hope swallows heavy, a mouthful of dreadful misery itching against the back of her throat. She coughs once and paints her hand with crimson blood.

The monster laughs—a wicked, terrible sound—and all Hope can think about is the fact that Josie’s with her mom in Europe, thousands of miles away from her, and Hope can’t fucking breathe.

“Are you scared _now_?” 

Hope finds herself trapped before she can blink, and she wonders how she got herself here. She tries to summon her magic, but no spells rise to the surface and she’s left panting against a heavy hand wrapped around her neck. Her back hits the cold, stone wall hard. 

“No,” she grits out between bloody teeth, mustering every inch of strength and conviction left in her. The monster looks away, or at least turns its head. Hope can’t tell where its eyes are still. 

“Humans,” the monster laughs in her face, awfully condescending. His breath stinks. Hope feels bile rise in her throat, and she struggles against him. But she finds that its hold on her is tight and deadly where it hadn’t been before, and she can’t break free. “Time and time again, they have only denied the one thing that brings them together.” 

Hope leans in, desperate to hear the monster finish its sentence despite the ugly hand around her neck and the awful smell permeating her senses.

“—Their fears.” She swallows thickly, and perhaps the Timor Tunores feels it because a low chuckle fills the room. Its claws itch tighter around Hope’s throat, and when she inhales, she can’t breathe. A single digit pricks her skin. 

“And time and time again, they have allowed those fears to act as weaknesses.” Its beady eyes pierce through hers, and Hope now realizes where they are. She glances again and they’re gone. The monster is shape-shifting too fast to catch anything concrete. She grows tired just looking, and even shutting her eyes, she feels like the monster is taking everything from her. 

“Repeatedly, I have walked this earth to find human after human tormenting themselves with thoughts of other humans. They believe in bonds that directly tie them to another person. Far worse, they allow themselves to submit to this foolishness. They maintain that the universe is benevolent and flawless in its wishes and aspirations.” 

“Tell me, Hope Mikaelson, what benevolent, flawless universe would allow for unrequited soul bonds?” 

Hope Mikaelson has no answer. Her energy is depleting more quickly now, her eyes closing, fluttering shut. Her mind feels foggy. 

“A pity, we couldn’t chat for longer. But you should thank me. When I tear out your throat, I’ll tell your lover your last words were for her.” 

She tries to reach out and get loose from the death grip, but her arms are limp at her sides. She barely has the strength to move her fingers. When did she get so tired? 

_ When did she become so afraid?  _


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Time does not bring relief; you all have lied  
Who told me time would ease me of my pain!  
I miss him in the weeping of the rain;  
I want him at the shrinking of the tide;  
The old snows melt from every mountain-side,  
And last year’s leaves are smoke in every lane;  
But last year’s bitter loving must remain  
Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide.  
There are a hundred places where I fear  
To go,—so with his memory they brim.  
And entering with relief some quiet place  
Where never fell his foot or shone his face  
I say, “There is no memory of him here!”  
And so stand stricken, so remembering him.”
> 
> —Edna St. Vincent Millay

When Josie Saltzman was twelve, she met Hope Mikaelson for the first time. It was only a split second, the meeting of eyes across a small room, but the effect was immediate. 

Her heart had pounded deep within her chest until she was sure it could not beat again. The entirety of her blood volume hummed just underneath her sensitive skin, and she felt that if she took a single breath, goosebumps might erupt across her whole body. 

In that aspect, she stayed frozen, unwavering in her place between her sister and her father. Niklaus Mikaelson was talking, but if you asked her, she could not tell you a single thing he said. 

Later on, when the Saltzman family had finally gotten back home, only then did she feel the ache, the never-ending trembling in her bones that begged for another glimpse of the Mikaelson heiress. Only then did the pain set in, only then as the weight of distance finally took its home in her stomach. Only then did she realize the gravity of her situation—she and Hope Mikaelson were soulmates. 

Josie still remembers now, how she had gripped her stomach, and how her mother had asked her if she was okay. 

“Period cramps,” she had claimed, and Lizzie had looked at her then, curiously, as if wondering why Josie was lying or why she couldn’t feel the so-called twin-pain. 

It was when they were finally going to bed, that Josie found the nerve to talk. 

“What do you think of the Mikaelson’s?” she had asked, and Lizzie had paused—just the slightest—as she buried herself underneath the covers. 

“It doesn’t matter,” Lizzie had declared, her nose upturned in a way that made Josie’s heart shudder with dread. “Daddy told me that they’re evil—and that we need to stay away from them.” 

Josie had frowned, and she had felt immensely confused. The Mikaelson’s didn’t appear all that evil a couple of hours ago. 

“Isn’t their daughter coming to our school, though?” she inquired, wringing her hands nervously as she reached for the light-switch. She could not get Hope Mikaelson out of her mind, and in the second that the room filled with darkness, she allowed herself to imagine red hair and bright, blue eyes in the pitch-black room. 

“I mean, I guess.” Josie could tell Lizzie was shrugging from where she was laying on her bed. “But she’s probably just as bad as the rest of them. Did you see the way she was looking at you?” 

A different kind of hope flooded her system, momentarily relieving the small throbbing in her veins. Josie let herself smile, knowing it would be hidden in the darkness. She ignored the small reality that Lizzie probably meant what she said in a bad way. 

“She was?” 

—

Years later, things had quickly gone to shit. 

Lizzie complained about Hope Mikaelson twenty-four seven, yet when Josie so much as thought about her once, Lizzie would glare at her as if she knew. 

In the three years since Hope had come to the school, Josie had not shared many classes with her. The girl was elusive and mysterious, and what terribly frustrated Josie was the fact that Lizzie had more than half her classes with the tribrid. 

To boot, their father had decided to take Hope underneath his wing after her parents had died, and he spent his mornings training her in self-defense. 

This only gave another reason for Lizzie to hate Hope, and just another reason for Josie to hide her feelings. 

As a result, she was left with longing stares across the dining hall and secretive glances in the hallway and library. Sometimes she could swear Hope was looking back. Yet, Hope never acknowledged her existence, and Josie was forced to feel her absence like a stab in the back. 

What was worse, maybe, was that Hope visited her relatives in New Orleans every couple of months. It hurt much more, so much so that she would lay shaking in her bed, with a sudden fever and chills that her father could never cure. 

He would look at her then, as sweat stuck her hair to her forehead—as she writhed beneath her sheets—as if he had seen this kind of sickness before, as if he had experienced it himself. He would always shake his head, though, the gleam of recognition fading into concern again and again. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, when Josie would be forced to go running to the toilet with nausea, she would wish that he could understand. She would plead for the courage to tell him in this small space of time, but morning always came quickly, and Hope always came back. 

It was spring break, when her mother found out. Lizzie and Josie had decided to visit Caroline in Canada for a couple of days, where their mom had promised them her undivided attention. 

It had been three days of awful, terrorizing pain—three days of ducking into public bathroom stalls to expel the rejection in her gut, three days of having to stifle her cries of agony with her hotel pillow at night so her sister wouldn’t hear, three days of not being able to eat or sleep or even think. 

She was in the hotel bathroom when her mother caught her. She had not been able to flush the toilet quickly, hadn’t been able to wipe the blood dribbling down her chin fast enough. 

Her mother had looked at her with horror, such a terrible panic that—for once—Josie realized that this was bad. This was really, really bad. Caroline Salvatore had opened her mouth, had even begun to reach for her cellphone, and Josie knew that she was going to call Alaric or yell for Lizzie. 

Josie had only reached for the toilet nozzle, taking her other hand and wiping the back of it across her mouth. She looked at her mom, and her mom stared back, and very, very briefly, as the whooshing of water mixed with crimson sounded in the silence, Josie allowed herself to forget that Hope Mikaelson was far, far away. 

“Please don’t tell them,” she pleaded, a broken whisper half-choked on a sob. Caroline Salvatore could only nod. 

That night, after they were sure Lizzie was asleep, her mother introduced her to Adelfipsychiazepam. The medication a person could use to take away the pain of a one-sided or dead soulmate bond.

“Take these,” she instructed, tilting the bottle of pills into Josie’s open palm. “One every night, before bed.” 

“It’ll help,” her mother had said, but her eyes were sad, and Josie knew then that it would never truly get better. She nodded and smiled instead of saying it, though. 

“When did you get these?” Josie asked, not immediately realizing the pressure of her question. Her mother did not reply for a long moment. 

“It doesn’t matter now,” she said, and Josie felt tears in her eyes. How had she got here? “I need you to promise me that you’ll tell whoever it is, Josie. Like I didn’t. Before it’s too late.” 

Josie was suddenly very, very confused. 

“But you told Stefan. You got married—“ Realization cut her off like a knife to the throat. “You told Stefan.” 

“I don’t understand,” Josie gasped, and then she cried silently, and then she cried loudly, because Stefan Salvatore wasn’t her mother’s soulmate, and she was so, so stupid, to have never seen it before. 

“Promise me.” Her mom had held her firmly, forcing her to meet her eyes. 

“I promise.” 

A year passes, and Josie _still_ says nothing. She _still_ watches Hope Mikaelson in the hallways and in the library, _still_ glances at her in the dining hall. She tries to force herself to move on. They’re a couple of months into the new school year, and there’s been many new transfer students. However, the bond deep within her soul ruins every relationship she tries to get into before it even starts. Her heart won’t let her have eyes for anyone but Hope, and she remains painfully alone and hurting. 

Hope hasn’t visited any of her family in New Orleans yet, at least, and Josie is beginning to heal. Though, the crushing pain of a one-sided bond doesn’t escape her completely, and it comes rushing back like it never left whenever Hope and Josie’s father go on their little monster missions.

The pain is ten times worse then, Josie thinks, because distance is one thing, but knowing Hope could get seriously injured is another thing altogether. 

The siphoner quickly finds solace in one Penelope Park, who is there without being intrusive, comforting without being suffocating. Penelope calls her Jojo and not Josie, and it briefly cools the fire loving Hope sets in her. She walks Josie to her classes, and carries her book bag whenever Josie shifts her shoulders in discomfort. She pays attention, and it lets Josie pretend that she feels something when Penelope grabs her hand. 

Consequently, it’s easy to say yes when Penelope finally asks her out. It’s easy to feign attraction as Penelope kisses her on the cheek, but it’s hard to quell the rising bile in her throat after. It’s hard to be happy with herself, when the voice shouting in her mind is wholly disgusted. 

It comes as a relief when Penelope breaks up with her a week later, when they’re preparing for Lizzie and Josie’s small going away party.  
  


Josie’s dreading it, completely. She doesn’t think they should be celebrating something like this, and the only reason she wants to go is to see Hope. She personally asked MG to invite her, and she’s secretly wanting Hope to come and beg her not to leave. 

She doesn’t think she’ll be able to stand the pain. If she only lasted three days in Canada, how bad will a week in Europe be? How will she be able to hide her condition from Lizzie? The pills have been helping, but only for short periods of time. She almost wants to fake an illness so she doesn’t have to go. Would that work? Maybe if she—

“Why do you have Axe spray in here?”

Penelope and Josie are painting each other’s nails in the bathroom, and Penelope is going through all her stuff in the bathroom in good humor. 

“Four hairdryers?” Penelope laughs. “Do you really need all of them?” 

Josie pouts. “Lizzie and I share them.” Penelope chuckles again, and Josie allows herself the momentary fantasy of what it would be like to hear Hope laugh. She can’t remember what it sounds like. Has she ever heard her laugh? She doesn’t think so, and gets angry at herself for getting distracted with Penelope in the same room. It’s not her fault, though, it’s not like she can help finding Hope in every single thing in her life. 

_ Is this considered cheating? Can a person cheat with feelings? _

Penelope’s laugh dies down a second later, and Josie’s thoughts come to a stop as she realizes the suffocating silence in the bathroom. 

“What’s this?” 

Josie’s heart convulses twice. She realizes that she forgot to hide the pills. She looks up very, very slowly. The bottle of nail polish in her hand freezes. A drop of blue paint hits the floor. Josie’s eyes glance down at it. 

“Are these...?” Josie swallows as Penelope reads the label. “Adelfipsychiazepam?”

Josie hopes Penelope won’t recognize the name, but she knows she will. For god’s sake, Penelope had been purchasing them for her mom for years after her dad died. 

“Tell me these are Lizzie’s.” Penelope finally looks up, and her eyes are pleading, desperate even. 

“Pen, please—“ 

“No, tell me that you didn’t lie to me when I asked if you had a soulmate. Tell me that our whole relationship hasn’t been a lie.” 

_ That’s a little dramatic. We’ve been together for a week.  _

“I’m sorry,” Josie says, tears filling in her eyes. This is what she gets. She deserves this, anyway. 

“Who is it?” Penelope’s voice is harsher now. Josie knows it’s all a front, but she flinches back anyways. 

“Pen—“ 

“Who. Is. It?”

She could tell the truth, like her mother asked her to. She could let the confession escape her mouth and drift into the space between them, but can she really trust another person with this? 

All her life she’s been hiding it away. From her father, because he hates Klaus Mikaelson. From her sister, because she hates Hope Mikaelson. If she can’t trust her family with it, can she really trust Penelope? 

“I can’t say—“ But suddenly the decision isn’t hers. Penelope cuts her off, and Josie immediately, really, completely knows that whatever she says will be in vain. 

“It’s Hope, isn’t it?” The heavy sound of Josie gulping is answer enough. 

“I knew it. I see the way you look at her. Like it hurts.” 

_ Like it hurts.  _

“It doesn’t matter, P,” Josie tries, to no avail. Her words get caught in her throat. Has it always been so hard to speak? “We’re. It’s not. It’s not like that. It’s one-sided. It doesn’t. It doesn’t matter.” 

  
  
_It doesn’t matter_, her sister had said.   
  


_It doesn’t matter now_, her mom had said.   
  


“Of course it matters,” Penelope spits out, and then leaves. The bottle of pills lay dropped on the floor, and when Josie bends down to pick it up, her heart drops with it. 

Lizzie drags her to the small party an hour later, and Josie pretends it doesn’t hurt when Lizzie doesn’t notice that she’s been crying. 

She drinks her body weight in cheap beer, and when Lizzie asks her, she pretends she hasn’t been watching the door half the night for any appearance of Hope. 

She pretends that she’s not relieved, that the hole in her chest hasn’t been filled, when her eyes lock onto red hair and familiar blue eyes. 


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Sometimes the distance is what kills us. Sometimes the killer is what is said in frustration or what is not uttered at all.” 
> 
> —Alison Malee

“Hi.” Her feet have carried her over to the tribrid before she can stop herself. Her voice comes out too bubbly, but she doesn’t notice in her drunken stupor. 

Hope jumps in front of her in surprise when she notices her, whirling on the spot. She immediately backs up almost the second she realizes the siphoner is there, and Josie resists the urge to close the space between them again. 

“Hey,” the other girl says, casual and cool, and Josie leans in without thinking, pulled to Hope like a magnet. With their anewed proximity, Josie can smell her familiar, forest-y scent of pine wood and some kind of plant she can never put her finger on. She nearly melts.

“I didn’t think you’d come,” she finds herself saying, and she knows she can’t keep the awe and desperation out of her voice. She discovers that she doesn’t care all that much. “Can I get you a drink?” 

Hope looks around for a long moment before declining. 

“No, thank you,” she says, always so proper, and Josie wonders if she kisses proper, too. If she would be nice and sweet, or if she would press her lips to Josie’s hard and rough, like she wants to devour her and be devoured in return. Would her lips lightly skim Josie’s skin, or would they bite and suck, leaving bruises and marks as a reminder that Josie is hers and hers alone? 

She shakes the thoughts away, feeling a twinge of hurt as she notices that Hope is looking anywhere but at her. The girl even takes an entire step back, as if trying to disengage herself from the situation. 

Josie’s body won’t let her, and she finds herself stepping forward, too. Hope’s eyes snap up from around the room, directly into Josie’s own, and the siphoner feels a jolt deep within her abdomen.

“Where’s Penelope?” It’s too random of a question _not_ to be weird, but Josie doesn’t think about it for too long. She wants to touch Hope so bad, wants to hold her hand, wants Hope to never let go, wants to feel as though they’re truly soulmates. She allows herself to imagine—in this moment—that Hope longs for her as much as she longs for Hope. 

“Oh, we broke up,” Josie tells her, shrugging nonchalantly. In the pause that follows, she searches for the other girl’s reaction. Other than a single corner of her lips quirking up, Hope doesn’t give her one.

“Are you okay?” the tribrid asks, her eyebrows furrowing in that considerate way they tend to do with Josie. Her fingers twitch at her sides, as if she wants to reach out, and Josie’s heart squeezes painfully in her chest. She wonders what Hope would do if she told her that she never cared about Penelope romantically in the first place, and that she only wants Hope. 

“Yeah. I’m fine,” she says, with a casual wave of her hand. She can’t seem to help herself from slipping up, as much as she wants to take the words back a second later. “She just found out my secret.” 

“Your secret?” 

Josie nods, her eyes lingering on the way Hope’s trapped against the couch. If Josie just stepped forward an inch or two, they would be closer than they’ve ever been before. 

In her distraction, she fails to realize what she just admitted. Once Hope’s words finally register in Josie’s mind, she _panics_, plain and simple. The plentiful amount of alcohol that she’s consumed all night doesn’t help much. 

She sways forward, her hand coming up to place a finger against Hope’s lips, her other hand gripping her cup tightly. 

“Shhhh,” she murmurs, going for playful, trying to save face from nearly exposing herself. Hope freezes.   


  
  
Josie freezes, too, realizing what she’s done a moment too late. She watches as Hope’s eyes flutter down to her finger, before staring for a long, awkward moment. The tribrid’s eyes then flash with yellow, and Hope blinks several times before they settle back to blue. Josie wonders if the other girl even noticed. 

The moment’s ruined seconds later, when Lizzie storms up to the both of them and demands to know whether or not Josie’s been drinking. Hope backs off, and Josie watches her, doing nothing like the coward she is. 

She doesn’t talk to the other girl for the rest of the night, and the last glimpse she has of her is when she leaves. Hope turns to MG with a look of worry on her face right after getting off of a phone call, and Josie siphons magic from the nearest wall in order to hear their conversation. 

“There’s been another monster. I have to go,” the tribrid says, and Josie’s fingers become numb. She releases her hold on the wall, and her hand drops to join her other one in her lap. 

She feels like screaming, but when she opens her mouth, nothing comes out. She can’t force her vocal cords to work, even though her throat is itching to yell and beg for Hope to stay just a second longer, to stay with her and to not go anywhere near another Malivore monster. 

Yet, she’s stuck to her spot, and although she tries to move, her entire body seems paralyzed. Her clothes feel too tight, and her skin feels too sensitive where the breeze of the night sweeps over her. In seconds, goosebumps ripple over her skin, and a full-bodied shudder wracks across her skeleton. 

Her eyes meet Hope’s, and if her breath catches in her throat she doesn’t yet realize it. She just continues to stare, and she knows that she’ll think about the way Hope stares back for the rest of the night. The blue of her irises will haunt her in her dreams, and leave her breathless until the morning. But for now, she’ll allow her eyes to linger until she has no choice but to look away. 

—

“Why would you put yourself through...” Lizzie takes a second to gag, distorting her face into one of disgust, “..._hugging_ her?” 

It had not been a single minute since Josie and Lizzie had said goodbye to their father, not a single second since Josie had shut the car door, and Lizzie was already looking for blood. 

Josie, of course, did not have an immediate answer. Why had she done it? They had barely ever touched in their entire lives, after all. Yet, she couldn’t find it in herself to ignore the desire pumping through the deepest chambers of her heart, and in a moment of weakness, of bravery, she had succumbed to the impulse of hugging the other girl. Her relief in seeing that Hope was fine after the last words she had heard from her the night before was just too overwhelming to ignore.

“I felt bad?” Josie answers—_Josie lies_—after a minute too long. Lizzie eyes her curiously, reaching forward to grab something from her carry-on bag. 

“Well, you’re about to feel worse,” Lizzie replies, without a care. “Skin-to-skin contact with Hope Mikaelson? You’re bound to catch a bacterial infection.” 

Josie gulps, her head swarming with dangerous thoughts, as if that could justify the faint buzzing just beneath her skin. 

Lizzie laughs at her own joke, obviously happy with herself, and Josie just shakes her head. 

“That’s not funny,” she grumbles underneath her breath, putting in her earbuds. The rest of the ride to the airport is silent, due to both girls listening to their music and the shuttle driver not being much of a talker. 

They get to the airport within thirty minutes, and the line for TSA screening takes another twenty-five minutes. 

When they finally board their flight, Josie’s already feeling like she might faint on the spot. She misses Hope so much. Meanwhile, Lizzie tries to order a mimosa just before they take off. 

“Come on, Lizzie, you look like you’re twelve. There’s no way—“ Josie attempts to say, but Lizzie shushes her as she waves down a flight-attendant. The siphoner finds herself sighing and quickly shrinks down in her seat to hide behind her magazine. 

“Yes, Miss?” The flight-attendant is a brown-haired male in his mid-to-late-twenties. Lizzie orders some sort of OJ and Champagne combination, and Josie tries her best not to look suspicious next to her. 

“See? I handled that like an adult. He had no idea.” Lizzie smiles, leaning back into her chair and looking beyond pleased with herself. 

“That’s illegal,” Josie reminds her, and Lizzie rolls her eyes. Some kid behind Josie kicks the back of her seat. She leans forward and gets hit with a sudden spell of nausea. She shakes her head and it’s gone. 

“Don’t try to act like you didn’t get drunk off of your ass yesterday,” Lizzie says, a small smirk on her face. It falls off a second later, maybe as if she’s abruptly realized something or remembered herself. “About that...”

The sudden emotion draws Josie’s head up. She swears that her heart has stopped beating. 

“I’m sorry.” It isn’t the first time Lizzie has ever apologized to her, but it’s the first time in a long time. Josie almost has to clear her throat before responding. 

“For what?” she manages to ask. 

The airplane becomes quiet as she waits for the answer, and Josie feels as if all the oxygen has gathered outside and she’s panting, gasping for air. Lizzie glances down, suddenly shy. 

“For Penelope.” 

Josie nods, her eyes straying back to her magazine. She definitely does not want to have this conversation here of all places. Yet part of her wants to lash out and embarrass her sister. A dark, sinister piece deep within her wants to make a scene and scream at Lizzie, and ask her why she hasn’t noticed that’s anything wrong with her. She wants to make the other girl understand that Josie’s been hurting, and _how come_ Lizzie hasn’t noticed, and _how come_ she hasn’t said anything until now? 

“Maybe it’s for the best,” Lizzie adds after a little while, placing her hand on Josie’s arm. Josie almost shakes it off, before reminding herself that Lizzie is only trying to help. “I mean, she wasn’t meant for you. What’s the point in dating if they’re not your soulmate?” 

_ Because my soulmate doesn’t love me back.  _

“That’s kind of hard for you to say,” Josie tells her instead, trying for lighthearted, but her voice sounds forced to her own ears. 

“I guess so,” Lizzie murmurs, almost forlornly, her eyes freezing on a random spot past Josie’s head. Josie watches as her pupils dilate, so extremely that Josie has no choice but to notice. Then the blonde blinks slowly, as if coming back to herself. Josie wonders what the hell just happened. 

_ Is she keeping something from me?  _

The conversation fills out soon after that. The flight-attendant brings Lizzie a champagne glass of orange juice with no champagne, which has Josie laughing for two entire minutes. The kid behind Josie continues to kick her seat for the entire eight hours of the flight, and Josie continues to get sicker. 

She ducks to the bathroom four times to throw up, and she isn’t able to go to sleep once. After the fourth time, the flight-attendant brings her a sick-bag and politely asks her not to use the bathroom again. 

She rolls her eyes but takes the bag, trying to suppress the awful urge to cough her lungs out in front Lizzie, who fell dead-asleep three hours in. 

She contemplates calling Hope about one hundred times—she had stolen her number from Alaric’s phone a few years ago—but decides that maybe that would be too creepy and she doesn’t have a good enough excuse.   


Hmm. Maybe she could ask the tribrid how the school’s doing, or maybe about the monster she knows they dealt with last night, or—if Josie could find the confidence—how _Hope_ is doing. 

That thought is enough for her to open her phone and hover directly over Hope’s number. She waits a second, and then another. An entire minute. Just the idea of talking to the other girl is enough to ease her pain, but she loses her nerve after another minute and shuts off her phone. 

Josie then puts her head in her hands, wondering why this had to happen to her specifically, wondering why _she_ had to be the one with an unrequited soulmate bond, when someone taps her on her shoulder. 

She bounces slightly to find an old woman across from her wearing an all-knowing, kind smile. 

“Soulmate pains, yeah?” 

Josie rushes to correct her, before realizing that she doesn’t have to. In the low-light of the airplane, Lizzie asleep next to her, there’s no one to pretend for. 

“Oh, yes, I know how that can be!” The old woman chuckles to herself, and Josie takes the opportunity to hack her lungs out into her elbow. 

“It’s okay, dear, you’ll get through it,” the woman placates, and Josie gets the feeling that the woman would be rubbing circles soothingly onto her back if they hadn’t just met. “I’m Marilyn. My husband just got up to use the loo.” 

“Nice to meet you,” Josie manages to say through a clenched set of teeth. She rocks in her chair slowly, trying not to attract too much attention, but she can’t help it. 

“You know, I used to get sick as a dog, just like you. That’s why George and I travel together now. It’s just easier, honey,” she tells Josie, like it’s the most simplest thing in the world. The siphoner doesn’t even have it in her to get upset at the woman. “Oh, oh, here!” 

The woman fishes out something from within the purse sitting on her lap, and Josie eyes it suspiciously before realizing it’s just a heat pack. She takes it gratefully, rubbing her hands over it until it starts to work. She doesn’t care about hiding her agony at this point, even frantically placing the heat pack anywhere she can seek relief.   


God, she realizes, she’s freezing, the kind of cold that bites into your skin and stays there. She feels like a sheet of ice. 

The woman continues talking, but Josie can’t see passed the pain to hear any of it. She nearly pulls her hair out of her scalp, while Lizzie remains snoring next to her. She’s never really been all that great with pain management, to begin with. 

A couple of torturous hours later, Josie’s ears pop as the plane finally lands. She clutches at her ears, because—_of course_—this couldn’t get any worse. She fights through the misery afflicting her entire soul, standing up and pushing away the hairs stuck to her sweat-laden face. Lizzie begins to sit up next to her, only now waking up. 

Just before they get off the plane, the old woman that had begun talking to Josie a couple of hours ago makes another appearance. 

“Goodbye, dear, I hope you get back to them soon,” she says, with a sickly-sweet smile. Josie nods and curls her fingers in a weak wave. 

“What the hell was that?” Lizzie asks her as the woman passes them, struggling to get her bright pink suitcase from the overhead bins. 

“I don’t know,” Josie lies, because she’s pretty sure Lizzie hadn’t seen her respond back to the woman. “She must’ve mistaken me for someone else.” 

Their mom is waiting for them the second they step out of the terminal. 

“Mom!” Lizzie gasps dramatically, attracting the attention of a couple of stray people in the airport. They’ve just landed in France, but because of the time-zone difference it’s early in the morning. However, they’ll still need to take a train to get to Paris. 

The distraction of Caroline Salvatore is just what Josie needs. As her mom releases her from a hug, she feels a cool hand against her forehead. 

“Josie, you’re burning up!” She widens her eyes in emphasis, as if to say, _is this really a good idea? _

“You know me and motion sickness, Mom,” she excuses, because Lizzie is watching them. Caroline bites on her lip, hesitating, but Lizzie interrupts before she can say anything else. 

“I know just what to make you feel better!” she says, her eyes following the high ceilings of the airport in delight. “How about a macaron? Ou un croissant? _Gelato_!” 

Josie laughs at her sister’s poor excuse for French. “Liz, gelato’s Italian.” 

“Are you saying the French can’t have ice cream?” Lizzie asks, feigning outrage. Josie and Caroline roll their eyes over her head, but don’t argue. “That’s what I thought.” 

The two-hour ride to Paris allows Josie a break to take her medicine and feel a tiny hint of relief. Her suffering persists despite it, remaining suffocating but not worsening or getting better. Every time Josie breathes, she feels as though her lungs are crunching in on one another. When she walks, her bones rub against each other uncomfortably, and they don’t quite settle correctly when she relaxes. 

When they make it to their hotel room, Josie collapses on her bed almost immediately. At the same time, Lizzie tries to force her to get up. 

“Come on, Jo,” she whines, pulling at a limp arm. Josie suppresses a groan. “We just got here. I want to go shopping.” 

“Lizzie,” Caroline calls her over, pulling her off to the side. “Why don’t we go shopping, just the two of us? And give Josie some time to recover from her motion sickness?” 

“Okay,” Lizzie agrees, and then lowers her voice conspiratorially. “I imagine that the train ride didn’t help. Do you know that she puked two times on the car ride to the airport?” 

“I can hear you,” Josie says, but her voice sounds muffled underneath the fabric of the pillow she’s currently laying on top of. She wants to add the number of times she threw up on the plane. 

“Did she?” her mom replies thoughtfully, and her concern for her daughter is evident in her voice. Lizzie must miss it, though, because the pair is out the door after Caroline checks on Josie one last time. 

She sighs in relief the second the both of them leave, content to bask in misery completely by herself. At least, her mom knows that’s how she prefers it. 

She lays in a crumbled ball on top of the sheets, unable to slip beneath them because she feels too hot, yet gripping them every once in a while because she’s too cold. She can’t even take any painkillers because nothing but one medication can dull the pain of a soulmate bond—which she has already taken and can’t for another couple of hours. 

When Lizzie and her mom finally come back, it’s hours later and the sky outside is dark. She hasn’t been able to eat anything, and the mere thought of digesting something has her stomach reeling and her feet running to the nearest toilet. 

Josie automatically straightens up when she hears the lock click, and she’s managed to wipe the pain from her face by the time the door opens, but she can’t hide the way her clothes are completely drenched with sweat. She’s still wearing her clothes from the airport, too—Lizzie and Caroline had taken the time to change before they left. 

“Josie! You’re gonna—“ Lizzie squeals, nearly skipping into the room before stopping short as she looks at Josie’s state. “Well, you look like shit.” 

She drops her shopping bags on the floor, Caroline just behind her carrying five on each hand. 

“Thanks,” she mutters, attempting to stand up the best she can by ignoring the need to bend over and pant. She doesn’t know if she can keep this up for much longer. The pain has never been this bad before—nearly four thousand miles of distance will do that to a person—and she’s lucky she hasn’t started throwing up blood yet. She coughs once and takes it back, a copper taste flooding the back of her tongue but not making itself known just yet. 

Caroline rushes over to her, placing a supportive arm under her elbow. 

“Why don’t you take a shower? And your sister and I will show you what we got when you come out?” 

She nods, grabbing random clothes from her suitcase before slowly making her way to the bathroom. She avoids Lizzie’s narrowed gaze. 

The steam from the hot shower she takes is enough to clear her sinuses just barely, and when she gets out she finds she can finally breathe—if only a little. The lump in her throat has even gone away somewhat. 

She gets out of the bathroom and wraps a towel around her hair, sitting on the bed as Lizzie begins to take out the contents and results of her shopping spree with Caroline. 

“Thank God! You were in there for an hour!” Lizzie says, quite dramatically, but Josie knows that makes sense. She loses time very easily when she’s far away from Hope, yet she feels every second like an excruciating jolt down her spine. “Anyways, I got you this cute little beret...” 

The girls spend the rest of the night catching up with their mom, with hints of Lizzie showing off her new clothes and small pants from Josie as she tries to catch her breath, just enough to inhale without causing a scene. 

At about ten o’clock, just as Caroline’s ordered them food from room service in impeccable French, Josie sits up to stretch her sore arms. She lifts them above her head, and almost instantly a sliver of sharp pain strikes her belly. It’s so sudden that she gasps, her arms automatically drawing down to place her hands across her stomach. 

“Honey? What’s wrong?” Caroline shoots toward her in a flash. Josie shakes her off, trying to reassure her that she’s fine. This time, it doesn’t go missed by Lizzie. 

“Oh, please, she’s faking,” Lizzie says between Caroline’s fussing. The room grows silent as Josie and Caroline slowly turn to look at the blonde. Josie can’t even think of something to deny the blatant accusation. Caroline quickly jumps to scold her. 

“Lizzie—“ 

“No, I haven’t felt a _single_ _pang_ of twin-pain since we got here, but you’ve been using it as an excuse just to brood over Penelope,” Lizzie explains childishly. Josie cringes into herself, and Caroline stands up from her kneeled-position next to Josie. 

“Lizzie, I’m not faking—“ she tries, just to get cut off again. 

“But you are, Josie!” Lizzie’s a lot more mad than Josie thought she would be over something like this. The siphoner can’t think of anything to calm her down. “You do this every time we go _anywhere_! We can’t go to a single place without you getting nauseous and throwing up, we can’t travel more than a hundred miles before you get sick. Any time we visit mom, you somehow develop a fever and stomach cramps within ten minutes of stepping on the plane. You’re always—“ 

Fear bubbles in her throat as Lizzie stops talking, leaning back slightly as the realization of what’s happening seems to hit her full-force. 

“You’re _always_ sick,” she finishes, stepping backwards and shaking her head in—_denial_? _Embarrassment_? Josie can’t tell. “You’re always sick.” 

Josie steps forward, reaching for her sister, reaching for comfort maybe—trying to pull her back into the past, trying to pull her back to a couple of minutes, where she could continue to be blind and clueless. 

“How long?” Lizzie bites out, venom lacing her words, and Josie wishes they had never left Mystic Falls to begin with. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” The lights begin to flicker, and the ground beneath their feet rumbles lightly. 

“Lizzie, please,” Caroline tries as well, extending her arms. The two words send Lizzie farther away. 

“Mom, you knew?” Utter betrayal comes out like a sob. “Why didn’t anyone tell me? How could you keep this from me?” 

A headache terrorizes the space behind Josie’s eyes, and she lurches forward. She almost trips, and grabs the closest bed post to steady herself. 

“How could you—“ Josie snaps, sharply interrupting. 

“How could _you_?!” she says, nearly screaming. “How could you not have noticed? How could you have ignored it?”

“You were hiding it from me!” 

“I had no choice! You forced me to! Anytime I tried to bring it up, you wouldn’t hear it. Anytime I even mentioned her name, you would tell me how much you hated—“ 

Josie realizes her mistake a second too late. The harsh sound of her breathing fills the room. Lizzie stands shocked. 

“Your soulmate’s Hope?” Lizzie makes a face like she’s just swallowed something awful. She can barely digest it, yet there’s something deeper there, along the lines of quiet confirmation, as if she knew all along and could not stomach it. As if she could not really hear it until she voiced it herself. “Hope?!” 

Josie braces herself, but Lizzie says nothing else. 

“Okay, girls, let’s take a step back—“

“_Hope_?!” 

Lizzie stands rooted to her spot, as if she is stricken to stay there by something divine. Caroline Salvatore has had enough. 

“Elizabeth Jenna Saltzman, apologize right now or I will—“

“No, Mom, it’s okay,” Josie interrupts, coming back to herself.She looks pointedly at Lizzie. “You don’t have to worry about seeing us together.” 

“I’m sure you’ll be happy to know it’s an unrequited bond,” she adds, feeling petty. Lizzie shrinks back, suddenly regretful. 

“Josie, I’m sorry—“ 

“No, you’re not.” 

“No, I am,” she repeats, more firmly. “I guess...a part of me has always known that you had something special with her. I just didn’t want to see it. I was..._jealous_.” 

“Jealous?” Josie prods, fearing the answer. She chokes down a mouthful of vomit. _Please don’t say you like her, too._

Lizzie nods, looking around the room hesitantly. She closes her eyes for a second, turning away like she’s trying to muster up the courage to say something important. 

“You know how those Malivore creatures have been coming to the school?” Josie nods, but she doesn’t immediately understand what this has to do with anything. 

“There was this monster...” She breathes deeply, like she almost can’t bring herself to talk about it. “One none of you knew about. I never had the guts to tell Dad. She, uh, called herself Jinni. She told me that she could grant me four wishes if I helped her with my last one.” 

“Lizzie...” Josie sucks in a breath. “What did you wish for?” 

“I...to meet my soulmate.” Her eyebrows furrow in a sad, thoughtful way. “At least, that was my first wish. When Jinni transported me to my new world, I couldn’t find them. She later told me I didn’t have one—and that she didn’t tell me immediately because she thought I wouldn’t help her.” 

Josie looks down at the ground, tears filling her eyes. _Who doesn’t have a soulmate? _

“You can imagine how I reacted,” Lizzie chuckles darkly through a sniffle, and Josie’s jaw goes slack. What does she say? “And then I used my second wish to find who had _me_ for a soulmate.” 

“That didn’t work out so well either,” Lizzie says, continuing to laugh like water. Josie knows that her sister will go crazy soon if she doesn’t intervene. 

“You don’t know if it was real, Liz, she could’ve been tricking you,” she tries to convince the other girl, but deep down she knows it won’t work. 

“No, no,” her sister tells her, gulping messily. The sound reaches Josie’s ears like thunder. “After that, I wished to go home. And then Jinni told me that we already were. See..._nothing_ had changed...because I-I...well, I don’t have a soulmate _at all_.” 

Lizzie chokes on a mix between a giggle and a sob, only to be instantly swept up in her mother’s arms. With a heavy heart and legs like lead, Josie joins the hug. 

A tear slips unbidden through her eyelid and lands on Lizzie’s unclothed arm. The blonde picks her head up with a silent question. _Why are you crying?_

“Sorry. My stomach really hurts,” she laughs pathetically, because the stress of the situation has worn off and the pain has come back ten times stronger. Lizzie only grips her tighter, while Caroline’s touch remains feather-light. 

The sound of her phone ringing causes her to release the both of them. Despite the mind-numbing discomfort encompassing her torso, she fights through it, reaching for her phone through blurry eyes. 

“Dad?” 

Her voice comes out like a croak. 

“Josie! I need you to come back...” 

“What?” She smothers a gasp as an extreme convulsion burns its way down her legs and makes her knees buckle. Her dad’s voice is shaking on the phone. She can’t tell if it’s because of the connection or because something’s terribly wrong. 

—

Later, when she’s back in Mystic Falls, she’ll think that she should have known. There could only be one reason for her to feel like this so quickly, only one reason for this never-ending, awful ache consuming her entire body. And—

_She’ll think that she should have known_. 


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What was it like to love him? Asked Gratitude. 
> 
> It was like being exhumed, I answered. And brought to life in a flash of brilliance. 
> 
> What was it like to be loved in return? Asked Joy.
> 
> It was like being seen after a perpetual darkness, I replied. To be heard after a lifetime of silence. 
> 
> —Lang Leav

The first thing Hope notices when she wakes up is that the constant, gnawing agony she had become so familiar with since meeting Josie Saltzman, had wholly disappeared. Yeah, it feels like the life has been sucked out of her, but it’s not _so_ bad without the pain of distance, and she finds that she can _breathe_. 

Breathe without feeling the bones of her ribs jutting into her lungs, breathe without feeling like every single inhale and exhale isn’t worth it. 

The second thing Hope notices is the infirmary room she’s in. It’s one of the rooms in the hospital wing, attached to the nurse’s office. The room itself is dimly-lit, and when she peeks out of the the windows, she catches a glimpse of complete darkness. It must be night, she figures. There’s also a bathroom connected to the room on her right. 

On her left...

Before Hope can stop it, her heart jolts into her throat and her lips part, unbidden. Or maybe it’s not much of a surprise. Maybe she had been hoping for it all along.   


Swallowing hard, the tribrid forces her mouth to close and sucks in a breath through her nose, eyes wandering over the body sleeping on top of the chair directly next to her.

And, of course, it’s Josie.   


Of course, the only explanation as to why she would be in no pain is because of the siphoner not three feet away from her, a thin blanket wrapped loosely around her, like an afterthought. Hope’s eyes stray down to the bits of the other girl’s outfit left exposed by the poorly thrown-on blanket. She sees that Josie is wearing a variation of the regular Salvatore school uniform, with a black skirt and a white short-sleeved top. 

_ Why is she here?  _

And then Hope remembers. She remembers how she had so easily been tricked by that stupid fucking Timor Tunores once again, or perhaps she had been the stupid one for letting it get to her a second time. 

But that doesn’t completely explain why Josie is here. Hope knows that the other girl had definitely made it to Europe, because she could never forget the utter torment that had afflicted her entire body from the space between them. Yet, why would she come back?   


Unless, a week has already passed, and that would mean that Hope has been in this room for a week...

She can’t sanely accept that, but, perhaps, it’s the right conclusion. Josie would never come back for something as trivial as Hope, and Lizzie would never let the tribrid ruin their vacation. Maybe it was better that she had been asleep the entire time, maybe it was better that she not experience the terrible, all-encompassing pain of a one-sided soul bond. 

Hope shakes her head to clear her thoughts and re-focuses on the girl next to her, simply because she can. There is no one for her to dart her eyes away from, no one for her to pretend she isn’t looking. 

And Josie...

She looks absolutely breathtaking. And maybe it’s because she hasn’t seen her for a while, or at least it feels like it, but the sight of her has unquestionably taken her breath away.

Her skin is clear, almost glowing in that way that Hope’s own eyes almost glow to match it, but the girl has dark circles underneath her eyes, as if she hasn’t been sleeping, or as if any sleep she’s gotten has been entirely restless. 

Eyes darting down her face, Hope catches a glimpse of Josie’s pouty, pillowy lips. She lingers on them, the image of it imprinting into her mind like a hot brand. God, Hope thinks, her _lips_.

They’re slightly parted from sleep, a little chapped, but they still look so undeniably soft that Hope wants to brush her fingers along them. Brush her lips against them. She has the distant thought that Josie looks rather endearing like this. She thinks it would be so easy to lean forward and steal a kiss, yet at the same time, she’s terrified.

What if Josie wakes up and sees that Hope is awake and staring at her like the creep she is? 

Hope quickly tears the sheets of her bedding off, bolting into the nearby bathroom, her sock-clad feet padding lightly against the cold tile. She ignores the brief spell of dizziness that hits her from the sudden movement. 

She just can’t let Josie see her like this. 

When she gets into the bathroom, she shuts the door behind her. She finds that there’s a mirror right across from the door of the bathroom, and just below it is a sink with a cup and a bottle of mouthwash. She gurgles the mouthwash in her mouth several times, trying to rid herself of the awful taste in her mouth, before moving onto splashing water in her face. 

She’s too sloppy with it, absolutely soaking parts of her hair and her grey Salvatore-school issued t-shirt. It’s better this way, she thinks, because her hair is really fucking greasy and she desperately needs to take a shower. If Josie sees her, she needs to look presentable—like a _proper_ mate.

_ I guess that doesn’t matter... _

She looks around the room for a brush, a towel, or anything else, but she only finds a toilet and a paper napkin dispenser. She leaves the bathroom soon, realizing that she can’t hide in there forever. 

When she gets out, she sees an empty chair. 

“Hey.” Josie’s voice is soft, and Hope’s ears envelop the sound, embrace it, long to hear it even closer. The blood _thrumming_ underneath her skin sparks so hotly that she feels herself catch onto flames. She’s sure she’s blushing. Hope nearly chokes on her own saliva.

“Hey,” she replies, her voice almost hoarse. She decides that she must look weird standing still, and makes to walk over to the bed she had been sleeping in before. She does it too fast, however, and her head starts to spin. She blinks at the dizziness, and Josie must notice because she reaches out and steadies her. 

She’s so nervous that she has somehow become numb, and she doesn’t entirely feel Josie’s hand on her arm. Maybe she’s still asleep? That could be why. Maybe this is all just a dream. 

“Are you okay?” Josie rushes to help, moving around Hope’s sheets with her other arm, probably hoping that the girl will lay back down. Hope’s jaw tremors. 

“_Mhmm_,” Hope hums out a strangled noise at the back of her throat. She nods, trying to pretend that she hadn’t made that sound in the first place. She feels embarrassed. Fuck.

Does Josie know everything that happened? God, Hope is just making a fool out of herself. She’s so anxious she can barely speak. 

“I think you need some more rest,” Josie murmurs, placing a warm hand on the low of the tribrid’s back to guide her down. Hope nearly trips over herself, feeling the touch like a burn. The feeling stays several long seconds after Josie removes it. 

“No, that’s okay—“ 

“Please.” Josie’s voice is so faint that, for just a second, Hope thinks that she’s imagined the word. But Josie is looking at her expectantly, and Hope finds herself listening. 

She sits back down, forced to watch as Josie fucking fluffs her pillow for her and tucks her in like she’s nothing short of a child. She huffs with annoyance, and Josie makes a sound like a giggle, but it gets lost through the deafening sound of her heart pounding in her own ears. 

The siphoner sits back down in her chair, picking up her blanket to lay it across Hope even though she’s currently being suffocated underneath what must surely be a dozen. She then sits down, and Hope pretends her breathing doesn’t quicken as she inhales the scent of Josie in the fabric. 

In a moment of weakness, in a second of awkwardness, Hope rushes to fill the void and says the first thing on her mind. 

“I missed you,” she says, her voice almost pleading even though she’s not asking anything. She knows she must sound crazy, but she can’t quite help herself, can’t quite help the soulmate bond begging for attention. 

“I missed you, too,” Josie says, not a second later. She sounds a little shy, a little eager, and Hope has to press her lips together to bite down a grin. She thinks that maybe the siphoner can’t quite help herself, either. The thought passes and the two stare for a moment too long, before Josie moves to stand. Hope feels like throwing up. 

“You’re awake now, so I guess I should go...” 

“No, don’t leave!” Panic dances in Hope’s throat, stepping all over her vocal cords and she screams, but the words come out like a harsh whisper and the screaming is all in her head.   
  


If Josie leaves her right now, she won’t know what to do with herself. 

“...get my dad.” Josie’s pupils dilate extremely, and Hope’s own eyes widen as she realizes what she had just said—as she realizes that she had just completely overreacted. 

“Why?” Josie’s eyes flicker up to meet her gaze, and Hope looks down, unable to meet her eyes. She sounds almost...pained. “Why don’t you want me to leave?” 

The question is easy enough to reply to, but it hurt too much to hear it, burning and bruising on its way to her ears, leaving Hope in agony of answering. 

She takes a deep breath to focus herself, sucks in a deep breath to take the words back—but when she exhales, words she had never meant to cross her mouth come out. 

“It hurts too much.” Her voice cracks at the  very edges, choked with something like desperation. Her breath catches, and she forgets how to breathe once again. Inside her chest, her lungs are shaking, begging, gasping for air.  


  
  
Hope swallows the double-knot that had formed in her throat, wishing that she had just let Josie leave, wishing that she had just spared herself the heartbreak she was about to endure. 

“I...I don’t—I don’t _understand_.” Hope still can’t bring herself to meet the other girl’s eyes, and she stares blankly ahead, wanting to slit her own throat and end this now. The bed dips slightly as Josie sits next to her, and Hope feels her heat like a flame. “_What_—what do you mean?” 

“I mean...” Hope swallows once again, trying to keep the anguish out of her voice, but it sticks along the inside of her throat like acid. She shuts her eyes, if only to search blindly in the dark for strength. Somehow, she finds the courage to open them and look Josie in the eye. “_It hurts too much_.” 

Her chin wobbles dangerously, and she turns her head over her shoulder at a poor attempt to hide it. At a poor attempt to fight back the tears building behind her eyes, to fight back down the lump in her throat.   
  
  


She can feel Josie staring at her, can feel her searching gaze like a burn. Hope wonders if Josie wants to see the tribrid unravel right in front of her, because she’s not giving her an inch of space to breathe and she feels like she’s going to explode. 

Josie’s lips are plump and directly in front of her, almost ready for the taking, and Hope has to clench a fist underneath the sheets to distract herself from leaning in and kissing her. Half-moons form on her skin. 

“I-I’m sorry. You should go,” she requests, gently, scared of herself. Hope doesn’t even care that she’s being hypocritical. She had always planned to tell Josie about her feelings, but not like this. Never had she thought of it going like this. “You should go. _Please_.” 

She finally turns her head back to the other girl, just to catch the moment Josie worries her bottom lip with her teeth, swiping out her tongue to soothe it. It makes Hope shudder, it makes her freeze. She clenches her teeth, trying to clamp down on her desire before it can make itself known. 

_ Just a taste... _

“Why?” 

“I’m afraid—“ Hope sucks in a breath, deciding that she doesn’t care anymore. She wants Josie to know, wants everyone to fucking know even though it might kill her. She can’t let it consume her anymore, and once Josie rejects her she’ll be free to die alone.   


“I’m afraid I’ll kiss you.” 

The room becomes deadly quiet, and Josie opens her mouth but doesn’t say anything. A part of Hope’s heart withers and breaks away, getting lost beneath her rib cage. 

“I know...that you don’t feel the same way,” Hope adds, her voice a whisper, because she thinks if she said it any louder she might shrivel up and just die on the spot. She blinks fast, trying to quell the tears attempting to make it passed her eyes. 

“Hope...” Josie trails off, too soft and too close to the tribrid. The girl closes her eyes, and Hope can’t stop herself. She leans in, her own eyes fluttering closed. She presses her lips softly against Josie’s own, just barely there. It’s chaste, and Josie’s lips hardly slide against hers, only a ghost of a _ghost_ of a touch. The siphoner then pulls away, and Hope chases after her before realizing herself. 

_ She kissed me back, right? Or did I imagine it?  _

She opens her eyes, immediately torn between being completely, overwhelmingly happy for her present self, and being completely, overwhelmingly sad for the girl who had suffered pain time and time again, mile after mile. 

Yet, she can’t even look at Josie, she’s too humiliated. She can’t dare look at the other girl in fear of the hot sting of rejection, because, sure, they had kissed, but it doesn’t mean anything.   


And Hope can’t bite down the bile rising in her throat like panic as she waits for another response. She holds her breath, anticipating the worst thing possible. 

When Josie doesn’t say anything, she finally lifts her gaze, and the pair stare at each other for another long moment, and Hope can’t help how her eyes flutter down to Josie’s lips, thinking about kissing them again despite the fact that she _had_ barely a second ago. But, the first time wasn’t nearly enough to settle the ache within her muscles. It wasn’t nearly enough to satisfy the soul bond shouting, yelling, _screaming_ for more. 

She leans imperceptibly slower, her lips trembling, trying to ask Josie to kiss her back because _she_ already made a move—and Josie pulled away. She pulled away. 

In the next second, Josie’s lips land ruthlessly on hers. Soft and perfect and everything Hope had ever imagined it to be. Everything she had never thought would happen.   


The tribrid responds almost brutally, trying to convey the utter devotion and _want_ cutting her deep to the bone with every contact of lips against lips, but she still feels like it’s not enough. She’s wanted this for so long, and now that she has Josie, she can’t get enough of her. 

Hope thinks she tastes fucking amazing, and in the places where they touch, she feels her skin hum pleasantly in agreement. She’s nearly shaking, she’s so happy. 

Hope takes the next chance to struggle out of the sheets strangling her arms, gripping at the siphoner’s hips with her super strength before lifting and pulling her into her lap on top of the bed. Josie makes a soft, pleased mewling noise at the back of her throat, and Hope greedily opens her mouth to slip her tongue between parted lips. 

Josie’s meets her own equally as fierce, and they fight for a long couple of moments before Josie leans back, face red and panting, making these breathy, little noises that Hope doesn’t know what to do with.

She shuts her eyes closed to contain herself as desire pools low in her abdomen, as venom pools thick in her mouth. The sudden stimulation is almost too much for her to handle. Josie’s hands remain resting at Hope’s shoulders, and the tribrid finds she can’t take the distance between them any longer. She surges forward once again, but Josie’s lips seem to dodge her own and she ends up at the junction between Josie’s collarbone and jaw. 

She presses open-mouthed kisses along the skin she finds, licking and nipping. At the barest scrape of teeth against the skin of her neck, Josie sighs long and sweet, wildly searching for Hope’s hands to tug fingers up on her thighs. The tribrid’s touch is hesitant but there, and Hope fights the urge to place her hands inappropriately higher on warm skin. She soon loses, dragging the skirt up obscenely high around her waist. 

“_Hope_.” 

She hums at her name, but other than that, she ignores it. Instead, the tribrid latches onto a soft spot between Josie’s chin and shoulder and sucks. Hard. Josie positively keens in response, arching into Hope’s mouth with something that sounds a lot like a moan. Hope isn’t sure. She’s never done things like this before, but she really likes how it sounds.

Her wolf seems to like it, too. Her eyes begin to burn with a familiar golden hue the second she hears the noise. Josie nearly squirming on top of her with every bite and panting hotly into her ear doesn’t help.  


It only makes her hold on the other girl tighten, which Josie appreciates if the shaky whimper she lets out is anything to go by. Hope almost faints.   
  
  


The scent of slick arousal causes her eyes to roll back into her head, the fangs in her mouth elongating and pooling venom against her teeth.   
  


Oh, God. When was the last time Hope shifted? She hurriedly leans back, swallowing all of the thick venom in her mouth with a messy gulp. She takes another second to painfully pop her canines back into compliance. The animalistic urge to _claim_ and _mate_ pops up in the back of her mind and stays there for a long while. 

Josie impatiently tugs at her hair to return her to her previous ministrations, almost quivering in her lap. Hope tries to hold her still, because, yes, she’s not fucking done—

“Oh my _god_!” 

Josie nearly falls off of her and they scramble apart. Alaric and Caroline come rushing in not a minute later, and Hope’s cheeks twinge with pink as she watches Lizzie attempt to claw her own eyes out. 

“What’s wrong?” Alaric yells, taking in the silent room and the danger that is decidedly not present. 

“I just walked in on Hope _molesting_ my sister!” Lizzie screams back, and Hope rolls her eyes directly in front of her, her mean streak coming back the second she lays eyes on the blonde. 

“I’m literally trapped underneath my sheets,” Hope drawls with a confidence she doesn’t feel, looking anywhere but Josie. “If anything, she assaulted me.” 

Hope finds the will to glance at the girl in question, whose kiss-swollen lips are formed into a pout. Hope becomes horrified to see how utterly disheveled Josie is.   


Her hair is noticeably tangled and her skirt is  wrinkled, too ruffled at the collar. If that’s not already bad, there are also red marks sucked into the skin of her neck. Hope quickly shoots her gaze back to the sheets of her bed, which have imprints of Josie’s knees on them from where she had straddled Hope. The tribrid blinks and swallows thickly, looking up to meet Alaric’s sharp gaze. 

She’s so screwed, she thinks, because Alaric is definitely going to kick her ass for kissing his daughter, soul bond or no soul bond. 

She’s so screwed, she thinks, because her heart is definitely going to get broken, kiss or no kiss. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What was it like to lose him? Asked Sorrow.
> 
> There was a long pause before I responded. 
> 
> It was like hearing every goodbye ever said to me— said all at once.
> 
> —Lang Leav


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “When I was silent,  
I heard the universe.  
Strangely,  
or maybe not so strangely,  
it sounded a lot like my heart.” 
> 
> —R. Jacob

“Okay! _Okay_! Everyone out!” Alaric yells between Hope and Lizzie’s bickering that had been occurring for the past five minutes. Hope smartly chooses to shut her mouth as the twins file out of the room, leaving Caroline and Alaric alone with her. 

Josie glances at her as she leaves, but she follows her sister and chooses not to say anything either. Hope thinks it’s for the best. Yet, her entire body says differently, staying attuned to the siphoner’s scent and her movement outside. She is still far too sensitive to the other girl despite their kiss ending minutes ago. 

“Caroline, it’s alright,” Alaric says, and Hope swallows thickly as she can already see what’s coming. “You can go talk to the girls. I’ll take care of this.” 

“I hope you feel better, honey.” Caroline pats her hand with sympathy, but Hope doesn’t miss the small laugh that escapes her as she leaves the tribrid in a room alone with Alaric. 

“I didn’t molest her, I _swear_,” Hope rushes to say, catching the look in his eye. She can’t get her mouth to stop moving, and she knows she looks guilty as hell. “We were only talking, really.” 

“Listen,” he cuts her off gently. “I know Lizzie tends to _exaggerate_ things, and I—truthfully—don’t want to know anything about what she walked in on, but we still need to have a conversation about it. That can wait for later, though. I think we should talk about why you’re here.”

The tribrid only nods, not trusting her traitorous voice for any longer. 

“Before we start,” he begins, and she nearly sighs in relief that they’ve switched the subject. “Do you remember anything about what happened?” 

“Yeah,” Hope blurts out in a whisper, voice quiet and withdrawn. She then regrets it and hesitates, shrinking in on herself. “I was trying to get information out of the Timor Tunores, and I guess I kind of...lost my temper.” 

She gulps, remembering sharp claws against her throat. She pulls at the collar of her shirt, trying to loosen it. She feels like she’s suffocating. Hope holds her breath, struggling to inhale and exhale normally. 

“It knew all of my weaknesses,” she says finally, her lungs clearing. “I can’t believe I let that thing get the best me for a second time. I’m so, so sorry, Doctor Saltzman—“ 

“How could you be so _reckless_, Hope?” he snaps, and Hope wonders how long he’s been waiting to say that. She wonders how long he’s been trying to appear calm when he’s absolutely seething, boiling inside. “You didn’t tell me or any adult where you were. You ditched all your classes. For what? Because you felt like you had something to prove? I don’t understand how you could do something—something so _stupid_.” 

“I only wanted to help,” she tries, but he’s not having any of it. 

“I was just upstairs, Hope! I was in my office!” She can’t look him in the eye. “I was reading a book, and you were dying!” 

She understands suddenly. Alaric isn’t really angry, he isn’t yelling at her because he wants her to feel bad. He’s yelling at her because he feels guilty—he himself is feeling bad. 

“You’re lucky MG found you,” he tells her, anxiously running a hand through his hair as if he’s reliving the stress. “He was able to get to you in time, but you didn’t wake up for days. Your energy was completely drained, so your brain decided to shut your body down. You’ve been in a coma since Friday. It’s Tuesday. I don’t know if Josie told you that. I don’t know if..._I don’t know_.”   


He sighs deeply. “We gave you some werewolf suppressants, but they didn’t last for long and you kept trying to shift without being there to go through it, since you weren’t actually conscious. Dorian said that it would take a while for you to wake up because you were in too much pain.” 

He wrings his hands together, which isn’t something Hope has ever seen before. He’s never been outwardly nervous, and if so, he hides it well. The tribrid wants to sympathize with him, repeatedly apologize and ask for forgiveness, but she feels awfully detached, like she’s stricken to her spot, trying to remember something she has no conscious thought of. 

“He also said that, under normal circumstances, you should have healed within a couple of hours,” he continues. “He didn’t understand why you weren’t recovering. He thought it didn’t make sense that you were in so much pain, and what confused him even more was that everything he did to alleviate your pain wouldn’t work.” 

“He asked me, well, if there was something else that could be hurting you, and I—“ 

“You told him?” Hope can’t keep the betrayal out of her voice, can’t help the way her voice cracks on the last word. 

“You left me no _choice_!” Hope visibly leans back at his harshness, wishing Caroline had stayed. She knows Alaric would never yell at her in front of the blonde. 

“Dorian and I came to an agreement.” He rubs a hand at the back of his neck. “He knew that you needed to wake up sooner or later, or that the damage your brain suffered would be too much—that the longer you stayed asleep, the worse the possibility you wouldn’t ever wake up would be...” 

“What did you do?” Hope bites out, her thoughts buzzing, the acid in her stomach churning. 

“Okay, before you get mad...” Alaric placates. “I _truly_ had no choice. Your magic wasn’t enough to save you. Your wolf wasn’t enough to save you. I wasn’t about to let you become a vampire. But you had a good shot of waking up, if only we could take away your pain to give you a chance to recuperate and fight whatever that monster did to you. And we could only take away your pain if...” 

“_What. Did. You. Do_?” Hope reiterates, dread pooling in her bloodstream. She feels dizzy.

“I...called Josie.”   


A beat passed.

”She tried to come as soon as she heard, as soon as she knew, and she got here yesterday—“ 

“You called her?!” 

“You woke up, didn’t you?” he says, and Hope wants to scream. 

“Oh, God,” she puts her head in her hands. This is too embarrassing. She won’t ever live this down. “Put me out of my misery right now.” 

“Don’t be so dramatic,” Alaric tells her with an offhanded wave of his hand, as if he has any right. Hope sighs deeply. 

“Did you tell her? Does she..._know_?” she asks, fearing the answer. She almost puts her hand over her ears—she can’t bear to hear it. 

“No! Of _course_ not,” he reassures her, but she doesn’t feel better. Of course she ruined Josie’s vacation, and Josie will never tell her off for it, but Lizzie will give her crap for it for the rest of her life. She knows Josie most likely hates her.   


No one says anything for a small time. 

“It probably doesn’t matter much, anyways,” she tells him finally, at last, when enough time has passed that she realizes that she had basically told Josie she was her soulmate herself a couple of minutes ago. “I think—I think she already knows. I think I just told her, actually.” 

Alaric’s eyebrows shoot to his hairline in surprise, and Hope resists the urge to suffocate herself with her pillow. How could she have been so stupid? She had been too caught up in the last few minutes to realize what she had truly said—and the implications of it. 

_ It hurts too much.  _

Josie must have gotten the meaning of that sentence, and if she didn’t, she should at least know that Hope likes her enough to admit to wanting to kiss her. But then again, Josie had kissed Hope back, and even though that didn’t mean that Hope was the siphoner’s soulmate, it could mean that she also had feelings for her. 

But can Hope actually be so selfish as to pursue a relationship with her? To know that she isn’t the girl’s soulmate and try to chase after her anyways? Could she ever truly admit her love to Josie without a soulmate bond hovering over them? She could never burden Josie with such a confession, and undoubtedly, when the time comes, she would have to let her go when Josie finds her own own soulmate.   


But. Could she actually do that? It seems so easy to tell herself that she would be content to watch Josie be happy with another person, but it’s much harder to act out that sentiment when she had so quickly turned to jealousy in the past. 

“And the Timor Tunores? Is it...?” Hope asks, trying to distract herself. It doesn’t work. 

“Yes, it’s dead,” Alaric tells her. Hope swallows hard. A lump forms in her throat like guilt. “MG, Dorian, and I were able to kill it. I know now we should have done that it in the first place. I’m sorry I ever tried to stop you that night.” 

Hope shakes his apology off, feeling undeniably upset at the news. But why??Why is she upset to hear that that stupid fucking monster had died? It had nearly killed her as well. 

“How?” she asks. 

“By its own fear,” he says vaguely, in that mysterious tone he always uses. She rolls her eyes internally. 

“What did it fear?” 

“Dying.” 

The pair continue to talk for a little while over what Hope missed. The school nurse comes in to check on her and examines her shortly, finding no deficits or damage to her body or brain. Alaric informs her that it’s almost midnight, which causes a yawn to stretch her lips, unbidden. He immediately offers to accompany her to her room. She’s free to leave now that she’s awake and moving, and the walk to her dorm room from the infirmary isn’t all that long. She even manages to grab food along the way. 

Hope drops her bag off on the foot of her floor—Alaric had mentioned that she left it in the dungeons—and heads to her bathroom to take a brisk shower. She really feels like just collapsing and going to bed, but she knows she must smell and a shower would go a long way towards making her feel better. 

Her muscles are sore when she flexes them, but the hot water from the shower does much to ease the ache. She tries to be quick about it and remain clear-headed, but her thoughts stray to Josie, with no chance of mercy or escape. 

She allows herself to get distracted, imagining the way the other girl had been so responsive to her touches—how she had squirmed when Hope skimmed her fingers over her waist, how hot her breath had been against Hope’s ear. She thinks about how Josie’s lips had moved so easily against her own, how they had barely hesitated, as if it was _meant_ to be.

She turns the water to a cold temperature after that, getting out within seconds. She ties a towel around herself and steps up to the mirror, dreading her appearance.   


It’s not so bad.

She looks much better now, she thinks, her hair wet but lively, the sharp line of her jaw not dangerously hollow. But her supernatural eyes can’t help tracing over the barely-noticeable red line on her neck. She blinks once and almost can’t see it. It makes her chest grow tight. 

She massages her throat, gulping messily as an instant of panic hits her. She can’t shake the feeling of hands choking the life out of her. She can’t stop the phantom pain of distance despite the fact that Josie is probably in her room a couple of meters away from her. 

The need to talk to her is overwhelming, almost as equally-suffocating as the vague feeling of sharp claws around her neck.   


The other girl is so close—so far—and Hope wonders if she’ll leave again knowing that Hope is fine now. She feels like she should at least apologize and attempt to clear the air, or at least say something, anything at all. 

But it’s late at night, and the other girl is probably asleep, and she should _seriously_ not try to wake her. Yet, her feet move on their own and suddenly she’s changing into sweats, passing the door of her room, stepping into the hallway outside. 

Hope decides that if the girl’s sleeping, she’ll leave her alone. She’ll knock, and if no one answers, she’ll go. That’s all. 

She stands outside Josie and Lizzie’s door for a solid minute. Her fist extends out several times, but never actually taps against the door. She can hear slight rustling within the room when she shifts her head just right, and she wonders if she should even be here at all. 

She gathers her strength in a deep moment of bravery and knocks twice. An answer doesn’t come for several long seconds, before—

“Come in.” 

Hope pushes the door open slowly, just quietly enough that Josie doesn’t turn around from where her back is to Hope. The siphoner’s hands are in her hair, trying to form it into a ponytail. 

“You’re back fast. Did they end up having those brownies?” Josie turns around, her smile stopping short as she finally realizes who’s in the room. “You’re not Lizzie.” 

“No.” Hope sucks in a ragged breath, shutting the door behind her. Why does she feel so awkward? She aims for a smile, but it comes out like a grimace. “I was wondering if we could talk.” 

Josie’s wearing a different t-shirt from when Hope had last seen her, paired with some short-shorts and slippers. 

“Yeah, of course,” she nods, sitting on her bed slowly, her eyes not leaving the tribrid’s. She pats the space next to her, but Hope elects to stay standing. She should definitely not sit on the girl’s bed, especially when she still hasn’t been able to get their kiss out of her head.“Lizzie shouldn’t be back for a couple of minutes.” 

“Alright, well...” Hope doesn’t know where to start. She had a game plan before she got here, but now that she’s actually here, it’s so much harder to think of something to say. Josie’s presence is making her brain fog up, and she thinks that it would be so much easier to speak if Josie wasn’t looking at her like she is now. “I wanted to apologize, for earlier.” 

Josie’s eyebrows knit together thoughtfully in an almost sad way, and Hope thinks that maybe that was the least right thing to say. 

“You came over here to say sorry?” she asks, wringing her hands in her lap before setting one on the skin of her thigh. Hope tries not to let her eyes linger, searching for something to tell Josie. Should she just apologize, or explain the truth of her presence? Should she explain that she could not stop thinking about the other girl, and that her mere absence in the past hour had driven her crazy? 

Would Hope be able to stay silent and wanting for the rest of her life, wondering what could have been if only she confessed? Or would she just tell Josie everything and possibly have her want or silence returned? 

But could she actually be crazy enough to do that? To admit her feelings after years of pining seems impossible. It also seems creepy. Hope and Josie had never truly talked to each other longer than a couple of sentences at a time. Would Josie think her insane for having such feelings when they had barely ever spoken before? 

But could she keep this up any longer, is the bigger question. Could she live with herself? Could she _live_ with the regret of staying quiet? 

The answer is suddenly painfully clear. 

“No, no,” Hope says, trying to make her voice transparent. She thinks she sounds like a dying animal. “I-I came over here to tell you that...” 

Josie’s eyes snap to hers, and Hope’s heart tugs insistently at her sleeves. She needs to just say it, but she’s afraid the words will choke her on the way up. She thinks that if she could get her heart to stop beating for one second, she might be able to get the right words out of her mouth. 

“You’re my soulmate.” Hope swallows something both bitter and sweet. It slides down her throat like acid and cuts on the way down, sitting heavy in her stomach. She feels frozen, yet she can’t seem to stop talking. “And...”   


“I love you.” 

A lump forms in her throat. It’s so hard to talk without stuttering or tripping over her words. She manages. 

“I mean, I’m in love with you.”’

In all her dreams and imaginations, she had never been able to truly predict what Josie’s reaction would look like. Sometimes, she would imagine the other girl yelling at her. And other times, when she had truly deluded herself into thinking Josie could ever love her back, she would imagine that the other girl would confess that Hope is Josie’s soulmate as well. 

She had practiced it a thousand times, mostly in her mind, and a few times out loud in front of a mirror, but nothing could compare to this. Nothing could compare to the agony of waiting for Josie’s response, so when it doesn’t immediately come, she continues speaking. 

She promised herself, anyways, that if she ever got the courage to do it, she would go all out. 

“And I wish I could say that it’s just the soulmate bond, but it’s not.” She sucks in a half of a breath, chokes when it gets stuck in her throat. She needs to sound better, like she has some semblance of charm, but her body is shaking too much to keep her voice steady. To keep it even. “Deep down, I know that, in any other world, in any other universe, I would have fallen in love with you anyway.” 

She glances up, lingering on the tears building up in Josie’s eyes. Other than that, the girl has no reaction. Hope can’t bare to see it any longer and looks away. 

“And I can’t help it, that my knees shake when you’re even a mile away from me,” she laughs pathetically, her voice like thin liquid, “but I can help the way my heart beats too quickly whenever you’re around.” 

“I can’t stop the cramps and the fevers and the chills,” she continues, her teeth nearly chattering between words. “But I can stop the shiver that runs down my spine when you even glance in my direction.” 

“I have not been able to stop thinking about you for the past four years, and maybe that’s just because of the soulmate bond, but—“ Has her heart stopped beating? She thinks maybe it has, because she can’t hear the thick pounding of it resounding loudly in her ears. All she hears now is silence. “I would like to think loving you has been all me.” 

She looks up finally and—

Josie is crying. 

Like full on choking-down-tears, waving-at-her-face, head-in-her-hands crying. 

“Fuck,” Hope curses, reaching out before deciding that she should probably keep her hands to herself. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. No, I didn’t mean any of it. I really didn’t. Ignore it, everything I said. I’m sorry. I’ll take it back, yes—I take it back.” 

But such heavy words can never be retrieved or pulled from existence, and Josie does not wish for them to be. Hope can’t see that yet. 

She backs up, swallowing the rough misery constrained in her throat. She moves to head to the door, and Josie panics. 

“No!” the siphoner heaves, swiping at her eyes and running her fingers along her own throat as if something’s trapped within her mouth. She stands up from her sitting position on the bed in a near second, crossing the short distance to Hope just as the tribrid tries to leave. “You can’t just say something like that and take it back!” 

Her hand wraps around Hope’s wrist, tugging her back to face her. The siphoner underestimates her own strength and Hope holds back her own just enough that she catapults forward. She almost bumps directly into Josie, and the two flail for a long second before Hope reverses their positions and catches both of them. Her fingers grip Josie’s hips tightly, her eyes unable to miss how close they’re standing apart. If Hope shifted a single inch, they would be touching. 

The sudden hush of sound as they realize their dilemma rushes passed Hope’s ears, and the two stare long enough that the tribrid remembers herself and drops her hands from Josie’s waist. In a strange lapse of judgement, Hope’s eyes flicker down to the girl’s lips. 

In the same lapse of judgement, Josie leans barely closer, her mouth only just brushing against Hope’s cheek before she steps backwards. Her fingers wrap around Hope’s wrist once again,  and she’s so sensitive that she’s nearly numb—Hope hardly feels the touch at all. A part of her wonders if she had just imagined it. That, if she looks down, she might not even see it.   


Her jaw trembles as Josie backs away, and her head pounds as she tries to understand what this all means. Her mind can’t make any sense of it.

“I love you, too,” Josie says, so sincerely and fervently that Hope’s heart bursts.   


Her fingers grip Hope’s, and Hope—for the life of her—can’t tell if she’s trying to reassure the tribrid or be reassured herself.   


A thick beat of emotion passes between them as Hope tries to find the words to reply, unable to get passed her surprise, and then Josie glances away, but doesn’t release her. A glow of red attracts Hope’s attention, and she looks down to find that Josie’s accidentally siphoning magic from her.    
  


The ceiling shakes above them. 


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “That’s what it was like to love you. It was like waking from a dream.” 
> 
> —Lang Leav

Josie drops her hands from Hope’s, having the decency to look abashed. The ceiling immediately stops shaking, and Hope swallows rough and loud as the pair dissolve into silence. The siphoner’s face turns slightly pink as she realizes what’s happened, and Hope raises her eyebrows with a playful smirk. 

“Stop,” Josie whines, feeling embarrassed. Hope decides to stop mocking her, but she can’t ignore the giddy feeling just beneath her skin. She feels like she’s floating on air, and even if Hope’s not Josie’s soulmate, hearing her say that she loves the tribrid is enough. 

It’s more than enough, actually—it’s everything she has always wanted. It’s the dream she’s woken up from too many times, it’s what she imagines when her thoughts stray too far and she finds herself staring at nothing. It’s the confession that she allows herself to hope for when the distance has gotten too much, it’s the words she yearns for when there’s barely any distance at all. 

At the same time, she can’t quite catch up. Her mind is still half-stuck in the past, back to when she thought there was never a chance Josie could love her, back to when she was constantly sad, alone and pining. But now she can hardly remember what that had felt like. 

It’s too much at the same time, and she feels like if she stays here for too long she might start crying. Her head is pounding in that addicting, intoxicating way, and there’s a pleasant lump in her throat that she can’t swallow over. She thinks she might have to sit down, she’s so dizzy. She’s too happy. 

“Why didn’t you say anything?” the tribrid asks, her skin buzzing delightfully. 

“I...I was scared,” Josie starts, wringing her hands together. Hope can’t take her eyes off of her. “I was going to, I swear, but every time I tried, Lizzie would say something, or my dad, and it became _that_ much harder.” 

“Do you remember that day we first met?” It’s so out of the blue that Hope doesn’t immediately nod. Of course she remembers, though. She can’t forget the way her heart had stopped so completely upon seeing the other girl she thought she had died. “I was twelve, I think, but I knew right away that we were meant to be.” 

Hope’s eyes widen minutely.

  
_Is it possible..?_

“The second we—my family, I mean—left, I knew something was wrong. I felt like I was dying, like I would never be whole again, and it was the pain that told me that, that—“

“We’re soulmates,” the siphoner says, smiling like she can’t quite believe it herself, like she’s been hiding it for so long that it’s now a distant memory. 

At least, for Hope, until this moment, it had been. She had always tried to keep the soulmate bond buried deep, but it had always rose to the surface just enough to linger, and she could never truly forget it. She could never forget the thirteen-year-old girl who had locked herself in her room for days on end, who had felt like she couldn’t tell a single soul, who had suffered the loss of her parents alone, wondering why she hadn’t told them before. She could not forget the girl who had spent hours denying she even had a soulmate, who had spent hours pretending the pain was all in her head, who had shifted into her wolf week after week to escape it, only to make it worse. 

“Yes. We are,” Hope repeats, the words just setting in. How could she have missed it? How could she have tormented herself this entire time when she was Josie’s soulmate as well? How could she have put Josie through that pain to even begin with? Just minutes ago, she had been ready to tell Josie that this didn’t have to be serious, that when Josie found her own soulmate she was completely free to leave her. God, she really needs to sit down. She thinks she might fall over. “Are you..._okay_ with that?” 

“_Yes_,” Josie answers immediately, on the anxious breath of an exhale. Shit, her eyes are watering again. Hope looks away before she finds herself crying, too. It is suddenly so hard to control herself. So hard. 

“That’s good,” she says, not unawkwardly, her voice thick with emotion. 

“This doesn’t seem real,” she adds a second later, the admittance escaping her mouth without her wanting it to. She hopes Josie doesn’t take it the wrong way. 

“I know,” Josie seems to agree, so Hope doesn’t have to worry for much long. 

“I just—I just never thought you could ever want me back,” the tribrid explains, swiping her tongue across her lips because they feel too dry. Her mouth is a cottonball. “It seems kind of like a fairytale, the whole soulmates thing. A part of me never wanted to actually believe it, but another part hoped that it was true all the same.” 

“Me too,” Josie says, wringing her hands together. “I kept telling myself that it was wrong, that I was delusional and imagining things, but the pain wasn’t something I could ever hallucinate in my worst nightmare. The pills helped for a little while, though.”   


Her eyes unfocus, taking on this faraway look that gives Hope the feeling that Josie is no longer with her, but has gone somewhere else. “But, lately, the  bond  had been getting stronger.”

Her voice grows quiet. Timid. “Especially, recently, with you going on all those monster missions with my Dad.” 

“I’m sorry,” Hope rushes to apologize, and Josie sits back down on the edge of her bed. 

“You can’t do that anymore, Hope,” she tells her, hands in her lap, looking down and not meeting the tribrid’s eyes. Hope wonders how truly horribly the pain was for Josie. 

“I...I have to,” she says, knowing that she has to get this out or she won’t ever. “Someone needs to protect this school. I couldn’t live with myself if someone died because I didn’t do anything. I could not live with myself if—if you died. I’m sorry—“

“Why do you have to be so noble all the time?” Josie asks, an exhausted smile pulling at her lips. 

“I’m sorry, I—“ 

“You really need to stop apologizing,” Josie says, interrupting herself with a yawn. The lids of her eyes grow heavy and she leans back slowly. Hope watches with an enraptured expression on her face. 

“Well, _you_ really need to go to sleep,” Hope tells her, a small smirk on her face. Josie hurriedly sits up. “You look like you’re about to pass out.” 

“I’m just tired, but, like, _barely_,” the girl insists, blinking slowly. “I promise.” 

Hope thinks this is a good place to end their conversation. A large part of her knows that she won’t be able to keep her guilt down if she’s ever the reason Josie doesn’t get sleep. 

“It’s late, I should go—“ Hope starts, just as Josie talks over her. 

“—You should stay the night.” 

Her thoughts come to a screeching holt, and she can’t quite help the flush that rises from her neck to her forehead. All the feeling in her face shoots directly to her abdomen, and she can’t take her eyes off of the look Josie is giving her. 

In fact, it’s too much. How is it possible to have everything all at once? It’s almost too fast, and Hope knows that if she doesn’t want to ruin this, she needs to slow down. 

“We...” Hope sucks in a steadying breath. “W-we should probably take things slow.” 

“Right,” Josie agrees, muttering something so lowly underneath her breath Hope can’t quite hear, for all her and her tribrid powers. “Of course. I just meant that it’s late, that’s all, and I don’t want you to have to go all the way back to your room. I didn’t mean that we...I didn’t—yeah.” 

Hope finds herself _thinking_ about it, before she shakes her head. Sometime over the last ten minutes, she had lost her mind. 

“My room is just down the hall,” she says, still smiling. Maybe she _had_ lost her mind, but she’s okay with it. “I’ll be fine.” 

Josie gets up to walk her to the door, and they linger slightly as Hope opens it. Hope begins to regret her decision. Why hadn’t she chosen to stay? She feels like the distance will be even worse now when she gets back to her room, alone. 

“I’ll see you in class tomorrow?” Josie asks hopefully, trailing off like a question, and Hope almost nods before shaking her head, remembering something. 

“No, actually,” she says. “Your father’s confining me to bed rest until Thursday. Unless you want to talk to him..?” 

She trails off, and Josie shakes her head with small giggles. 

“Nope,” Josie smiles, her eyes crinkling at the corners. 

“Didn’t think so.”

“Can I come check on you after school, then?” Hope’s heart shakes with excitement at the thought. She wants to tell the other girl that she would love nothing more. “We could finish talking? Maybe watch some movies?”

The siphoner suddenly looks unsure and hesitant. Hope falls back to humor. 

“On a school night?” She arches an eyebrow. She can’t entirely remember right now that it’s past midnight and there’s school for Josie in the morning. “Your dad would kill me.” 

“Is that a no?” Josie asks, leaning in slightly, almost flirtatiously, like she now knows for sure that it’s a yes. 

“Of course not,” Hope tells her, feeling oddly hot. Flushed. “You can come over any time you want.” 

“Perfect.” 

Hope should probably leave now. She’s stayed for far too long, and she’s not the one that has to wake up early. What should she even do? She feels like she can’t leave, like her feet are glued to the floor, like her heart is glued to Josie. And Josie is prolonging their time together, too, like she’s expecting something..? 

Should Hope kiss her? Should she hug her? Or do nothing at all? 

“Goodnight, Josie,” she breathes out, voice a whisper. Hope turns away. 

“Goodnight,” the other girl replies, and they look at each for a long, pining moment. Josie gives a small wave, and then the siphoner closes the door.

Hope grins ear to ear as the door shuts, now that no one’s watching. She takes her first step, and then, not a second later, she hears the door open quickly. She turns back amused, thinking maybe she’s forgotten something. 

“Wait,” Josie pulls her back by her arm, and she barely has time to realize what’s happening before the girl puts two hands on her shoulders and kisses her on the cheek, much like earlier, but this time Hope is decidedly _not_ numb, and she actually feels it. 

Josie’s lips are kind and warm, and Hope memorizes the soft pressure despite how short is lasts. 

Her skin tingles like pins and needles as Josie backs away, a soft smile on her face, and Hope doesn’t care that she’s probably blushing. 

“Goodnight, Hope,” Josie repeats, as if she’s finally satisfied. 

“Goodnight.” 

Hope walks away for a second time, smiling like she’s crazy, like something’s awfully wrong with her, because she must look absolutely demented with how wide she’s beaming. 

She glances up and accidentally meets eyes with Lizzie Saltzman, who’s carrying a plate of food full of sweets. 

Hope’s eyes widen and she looks away quickly—appearing terribly guilty—trying to keep her head down and avoid the other girl. It’s too bad, because Lizzie sees her anyways. 

“Not so fast, wolf girl,” Lizzie stops her with a hand and pulls her to the side of the hallway. Hope gulps messily. “Where you were coming from? Just now?” 

“The bathroom,” Hope answers—_lies_—immediately. Lizzie watches her for a long second before narrowing her eyes. 

“You and I both know that you have a bathroom in your room,” she says, and then gestures behind her. “And your room is that way.” 

“Right,” she agrees. “I got lost. My memory is still sketchy, you know, from the traumatic injury and all that.” 

“The nurse cleared you with a clean bill of health,” Lizzie states, matter-of-fact. Hope can’t resist smiling, her thoughts still on Josie. She tries to tear the grin off her face but she can’t. “Oh, I _know_ you weren’t leaving my room, Mikaelson.” 

Hope still can’t hide the upturn of the corners of her lips. 

“Oh, God, you did,” she groans. “And you’re smiling like you belong in an insane asylum. I understand that you two are all soulmate-happy now, but please don’t tell me you _already_ defiled my innocent sister.” 

Hope chokes on her spit. She coughs like her lungs are screaming, and Lizzie pats her back sympathetically, the most compassion the blonde’s ever showed her. 

“_Fine_. You have my blessing, or whatever.” 

Maybe Lizzie isn’t so bad, after all. 


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “In the end, that was the choice you made, and it doesn’t matter how hard it was to make it. It matters that you did.” 
> 
> —Cassandra Clare

Hope wakes up in the middle of the afternoon, feeling like she’s had the best sleep she’s ever gotten in a long time. She stretches her limbs out lazily, sitting up and swinging her legs over the bed. Her muscles are sore, particularly the ones in her neck, but she doesn’t find herself minding much. She takes a quick, hot shower, allowing the water to run into her hair and ease her aching bones. 

The air in her lungs feels fresher than they have in days, and her ribs aren’t throbbing like they usually are underneath the weight of a distant heart. 

She feels _good_. 

But her room is a mess. And that won’t do for when Josie comes over. She can’t have her soulmate thinking she lives in a dumpster, or something. 

After her shower, she makes her bed as well as she possibly can—which is decidedly, _not_ very well—and picks up all the clothes off the floor. She hangs the clean ones up and throws the dirty stuff into a laundry hamper, and organizes her desk and dresser. She even cleans up the bathroom, making sure she has towels and soap in there. 

She does all of this with too much energy, feeling too jumpy. The werewolf suppressants Alaric and Dorian gave her have worn off by now, and she’s left with shifty eyes and a heart beating too fast for its own sake. She doesn’t have time to go out and change now, though. She doesn’t want to have to take another shower, and she definitely doesn’t want Josie to get worried. 

It doesn’t matter that she feels the call to change like a hungry whisper right in her ear. It doesn’t matter, because Josie will be coming over in a couple of hours, and she can control herself until at least then.

Around two o’clock, she hears a knock on the door. Her ears are sharp enough that she immediately knows it’s not Josie. Class also hasn’t ended yet, so that wouldn’t make sense, but a girl can hope.

The tribrid can’t see through the door, but she’s guessing the person standing outside is Alaric based on his harsh breathing pattern. He always breathes like he’s upset about something when it comes to her. 

She thinks for a small, nervous moment that she’s done something wrong, or that she’s in trouble, or that he’s about to give her the whole “you’re-trying-to-date-my-daughter” talk. She shakes herself out of her worrying apprehension and stands up. 

She swings the door open, and deadpans, “Hey, Doctor Saltzman.” 

The man opens his mouth to say something before closing it and looking around the room. 

“Hmm, did you remodel?” he asks, and she scowls. 

“No, I just cleaned up,” Hope tells him, frown growing deeper. Alaric raises his eyebrows like that’s the biggest surprise of his life. 

“Wow, looks like a _totally_ different room,” he comments, still extending his head to get a glimpse through the door. Her fingers itch to shut it close. 

“My room wasn’t that bad,” she says, still frowning, and he laughs. 

“It was _filthy_, Hope.” 

“Okay, whatever.” She rolls her eyes, annoyed. “I’m guessing you didn’t come over here to check up on me.”

It’s brutal, but it’s the truth. Hope Mikaelson—the all-powerful tribrid—does not get checked up on. She gets injured, she recovers. She gets knocked down, she gets back up. She does not receive any extra help. Her mandated therapy sessions with Emma Tig are only something Alaric assigns her to make himself feel better about everything she’s gone through. 

Yet, he’s taken her in like a true father, so she can’t really be anything but grateful. 

“Right,” he nods, knitting his eyebrows together like he might be nervous or stressed-out or both. “I’m sorry to put you in this situation, but Dorian tracked another monster to Mystic Falls High, and we need to take care of it before one of the students...” 

He continues to talk, but Hope hears everything like he’s speaking through glass. 

The only reason he had come over was to collect her to take down _another_ monster. 

And, sure, Mystic Falls isn’t that far away, and Alaric is only asking her because he knows that she’ll say yes, above all else. Yet, a part of her does not want to go at all. A part of her knows that taking care of some monster will take hours—and a terribly selfish part of her does not want to miss spending time with Josie just to fight another monster and travel farther away from her. 

Because, truthfully, she can’t get enough of Josie, and she has already gotten _plenty_ of time with monsters in her life. The pair have only just kind-of gotten together, and although it isn’t official, she doesn’t want to ruin it for another Malivore creature. 

And she knows Josie will be mad. Yesterday, the girl had done everything short of begging to stop the tribrid from going on monster missions. 

But Hope knows what has to be done. She cannot choose the easy thing to do or the selfish part of her. 

She will just have to deal with the consequences later.

“Sure, sounds fun,” she cuts Alaric’s ranting off, trying to appear her usual, nonchalant self. In truth, she does not feel like herself at all. She feels the phantom ache of her bones breaking and reforming, but nothing is happening and she is _fine_. She feels the phantom touch of hands wrapped around her neck, but _nothing is happening and she is fine_.

She’s fine. 

She’ll just talk to Josie after the fact and explain this whole mess. Well, she could actually text her right now, but the girl’s in class and Hope doesn’t want to be an inconvenience. And she doesn’t want the siphoner to think she’s creepy, having her number and all. So, yes, she’ll just talk to Josie after. 

“Great!” he exclaims, like he’s so, so proud, and Hope has never felt so, so worse. 

On the ride to Mystic Falls, Alaric informs her on what kind of monster they’re fighting—a Siren. He tells her that it’s a bird-like creature that oftentimes has human features. Their main weapon is their song. 

“You know, like mermaids?” He smiles, his hands tightening on the steering-wheel, already nerding-out. “It’s rumored that they used to lure sailors to sea with their voices.” 

“What the fuck is it doing in Mystic Falls, though?” she asks, getting kind of irritated. “Last time I checked, we’re not sailors _or_ a body of water.” 

Alaric’s eyes narrow at her choice of language before explaining. “I don’t know, but hopefully it can give us some information on Malivore.” 

It takes thirty minutes for Alaric to request a meeting with the principal of the school, and another thirty minutes for him to pretend that he’s giving Hope a tour inside the building. 

They end up finding the siren in the school swimming pool. Hope locks all the doors near the _thing_, glad that students are in class and not near the gym. 

It, or maybe she—Hope thinks it looks feminine, but then again that doesn’t really mean much—notices pretty quickly that she’s not alone. She shrieks and Hope has to cover her face, feeling her eardrums nearly rupture. 

“I thought you said the voice was supposed to be appealing!” Hope yells at Alaric, her ears still ringing. Alaric shrugs. 

“It doesn’t matter now!” he yells back, and she winces. Had Hope sounded _that_ loud? “We need to disarm her quickly.” 

“_How_?” she asks, her hearing coming back to her as they back away from the creature. The creature certainly does not back away from them, and screams with even higher of a pitch than before. 

“Take away her voice, and whatever you do, don’t get in the water!” 

Hope thinks fast. 

Her hands come alight with soft kindles as she sets a plan in her head—if she can get close enough, she can probably singe off the monster’s vocal cords. She might be able to heal her later, and that stops the tribrid from feeling bad about her plan. 

Hope steps forward, bracing herself for another screech. The siren opens her mouth slowly, and Hope immediately notices three sets of razor-sharp teeth second to onyx-gold eyes slitted like a reptile’s. 

What comes next, is not what Hope could have ever expected. 

The siren’s tone takes on a suspiciously familiar note, almost exactly like Josie’s, except her voice becomes seductive and honeyed like Hope has never heard before from the siphoner. It starts low and grows high-pitched and needy, boiling Hope’s ears and fogging her mind with lust.   


In fact, the voice is exactly like what she has always imagined in her filthiest, dirtiest dreams with her soulmate. 

“_Oh, Hope, I’m so hot for you_.” Blue eyes widen enormously at the almost pornographic quality to Josie’s voice, and she blushes like the blood underneath her face is on fire. 

“_So _wet_ for you_.” 

She falls into a distracted trance, her mind straying to the events that transpired after she had woken up the night before—lips against lips, her teeth latching onto the hollow of Josie’s neck, the siphoner’s quick, short breaths directly into her ear. Suddenly, Josie kissing her on the cheek isn’t enough. She needs _more_. 

Hope sways dangerously near the pool as her thoughts become consumed by lust and sin, wanting, no, _needing _Josie underneath her and panting, telling the tribrid that she wants her, and _only_ her. 

A slight gnawing pain gradually makes itself known—the beginnings of Hope’s extended time away from Josie—and, her attention now diverted, she catches herself just before she falls into the pool. Hope knows that she had definitely not been this close to the water before. She wonders for how long she had been underneath the siren’s spell. 

She glances over to Alaric and finds him in a similar position. She runs over and pulls him backwards just a second before he takes the dive. He jerks back the second he’s finally gotten ahold of himself, and the two of them avert their eyes away awkwardly. 

The siren’s words stop, her eyebrows furrowed like she’s puzzled, before she shrieks again. Hope holds herself to the pain the soulmate bond is emanating to focus herself. 

The pain isn’t enough that she can’t catch her breath, but it’s definitely enough for her to just barely feel it. It creeps in like a pesky gnat, skimming across her skin gently yet setting the surface of her every nerve on fire. 

She shrugs the pain away, like she’s done hundreds of times before, and then faces the monster fully, hands raised with magic licking at her finger tips. 

Hope’s phone buzzes in her pocket. She hesitates, the flames forming in her hands slightly disappearing. She has the distant thought to answer her phone—she ignores it. 

** [Josie 4:49] Where are you??  **

She raises her hand again and sends a concentrated ball of fire into the siren’s open mouth. The sound of her singing is cut off with brutal sharpness, and Hope swallows guiltily as the monster tries to sing with no sound. 

When everything’s said and done, Hope places a cloaking charm on the siren and they shove her in the trunk of Alaric’s car. Half of the tribrid is absolutely soaked since Alaric made her fish the monster out of the water. She thinks that she’s never going to forget what happened today, for sure. 

“You looked kind of shaken up back there. What did you hear?” Alaric inquires, ten minutes after they’ve left. Hope’s hair is still dripping. He eyes his car’s leather seats absentmindedly. 

“What did _you_?” 

“Fair enough,” he relents, gulping thickly, and they silently agree to never talk about it again. 

When Hope finally gets back to her room, it’s after seven and she’s exhausted. Covering up everything at the school had taken much more time than she thought would have been possible. 

She opens the door, feeling truly disgusted with herself. She still smells like chlorine, and her hair is still dark from being damp. To add onto that, she feels like she might snap at the sound of a twig breaking. Her entire body is still on edge from not turning into her wolf for a long time, and her muscles are tightly knotted together in the space between her back and shoulders. 

Hope turns around and locks the door quickly. When she turns back, she’s greeted by none other than—

“Josie.” 

Hope sounds out of breath, she knows, but of course, of-_fucking_-course the girl had stayed up waiting for her while Hope had taken her delightful time walking over here.

“Hope, hey,” Josie starts, sitting up from the edge of Hope’s bed, her arms crossed, maybe angrily—Hope can’t tell yet. 

“Where were you?” Her eyes are slightly puffy like she’s been crying, or something equally upsetting, and Hope can see clearly now that she’s not angry, just sad. She has one of Hope’s blankets wrapped around her shoulders, and Hope would smile if it wasn’t entirely inappropriate for the situation. The other girl is already in her pajamas, too. They’re quite thin ones, and Hope briefly imagines that they’re the reason she needs a blanket. 

“I...” Why is it suddenly so hard to speak? “Your dad needed, uh, needed my help with another monster.” 

Since when does she stutter? 

God, if Josie isn’t going to kill her, Hope will definitely find some way to do it herself. 

“_Another_ monster, Hope?” she asks, disbelieving. “You were _just_ in the hospital wing yesterday!” 

“I—I know, but the thing was _only_ at Mystic Falls, and that’s not really all that far away, so, I mean, I thought you would be fine—“ 

“You thought I would be fine?!” 

Hope takes it back. Josie is very, _very_ mad. 

“You could have said something, or texted me,” Josie whispers, but it’s much louder than a whisper. The tears are flowing freely now, and Hope wants to slap herself in the face. “Or at least tried, _at all_, to notify me that you didn’t just disappear out of thin air!” 

“I didn’t think—“ 

“No, you _didn’t_!” 

“Let me finish,” Hope growls, her eyes glowing yellow. Josie stops crying, mostly out of surprise, but a little bit of something else—and Hope wishes dearly that it’s not fear. She sucks in a sharp breath, almost panting with emotion, but the familiar scent of Josie calms her down enough to focus. “I’m sorry. But we only talked about this yesterday, so I didn’t think that everything had just changed overnight.” 

“Of course everything’s changed!” the siphoner insists, wringing her hands together. The blanket falls to the floor. Hope starts to agree that everything has changed, because a week ago, she would have said nothing at all after a monster mission, and Josie would have done the same. 

“Okay, I’m sorry,” Hope says, because Josie won’t let her say much else without it getting thrown back into her face. She suddenly regrets with everything inside of her that she had went with Alaric. Why couldn’t Josie just blame Alaric? Why did everything have to be _her_ fault? Could no one _else_ be responsible? 

Josie gives her a doubtful look. 

“I am, really,” she adds, mostly placating the other girl. She can’t let this blow up any further than it has. Also, she _stinks_, and her wolf can’t stomach the thought of appearing anything less than pristine to her mate. “I just—I need to take a shower. I’ll be quick. Can you stay here? I’ll be right back, I promise.” 

Josie nods, crossing her arms and sitting back on the bed, but most of the tension has already left the room—much to the relief of Hope. She picks up the blanket and hands it the other girl once again, like a white flag, and then nearly sprints to the bathroom after picking out sleeping clothes from her dresser. 

She takes a record-breaking short shower, throwing her clothes on even though her hair hasn’t dried yet. She rubs it with a towel before exiting the bathroom, some droplets still hitting the floor. 

Josie looks up but doesn’t say anything, almost appearing shy, minutely rocking back and forth in the blanket. Hope sits down next to her with no small amount of reluctance, not knowing where to start. 

“Do you feel better?” she asks, wondering if she can touch Josie, or if that would be too much, too early. She feels like they’ve already crossed _that_ line, but maybe that has changed as well. 

“I didn’t overreact,” Josie tells her. Hope wants her to know she didn’t mean it like that. “It hurt, a lot, when you were gone.” 

Hope opens her dumb mouth. 

“But I...” 

What does Hope say? That she barely felt _any_ pain at all? That she felt only enough to ground her against the siren? 

“But you were fine?” Josie sucks in a rough breath. Hope wants to comfort her, but she’s too scared that Josie might get uncomfortable. “Yeah, the difference is, you knew where _I_ was, but I had no idea where _you_ were.” 

Hope has no idea what to say to that. She opens her mouth to apologize again, but what comes out is something entirely different. 

“Do you want to stay the night?” 

Josie looks up, alarmed. Her reaction is reasonable, as the siphoner had made the same request yesterday and Hope had almost laughed in her face. 

“I’m not trying to get into your pants, _I swear_,” Hope says, and Josie giggles. 

“Sure,” she agrees, after such a short moment of contemplation that Hope’s skin hums pleasantly. “Let me just text Lizzie.” 

She gets out her phone, and Hope grabs a pillow and a blanket and sets it on the floor. She takes out her own phone and checks her messages as well, her heart jolting in guilt as she reads Josie’s message from earlier. 

“What are you doing?” Josie asks with a frown, after sending Lizzie a message. Hope tilts her head, also confused. 

“I’m sleeping on the floor,” she explains, fluffing her pillow. 

“We’re soulmates,” Josie says, almost offended, like it’s the most easiest thing in the world. Hope thinks that maybe it _is_. “We can share the bed.” 

Hope stands and waits for Josie to slip underneath the covers before she follows. She snaps her fingers and shuts the lights off, and then she slides into the spot Josie leaves open for her. She rests her head on a soft pillow before turning onto her side, trying not to freak out. 

She had always thought that it might be awkward—going from barely talking to Josie to sharing a bed with her—but she understands now that it isn’t at all. It feels right, laying next to her soulmate, so close that Hope just wants to tell Josie—over and over again—that she loves her, and that she will always be there for her, even when she isn’t. Especially when she isn’t.    
  


_God_, she thinks. She loves her so much. She wants to tell her that _so much_. 

Josie isn’t facing her, though, and Hope thinks that that might be because Josie is still angry with her. 

“Are you still mad at me?” she blurts, whispering into the darkness. A reply doesn’t come for such a long time that Hope thinks Josie’s already fallen asleep. 

“Yes,” Josie whispers back, and Hope’s sensitive eyes can just barely make out rise and fall of her chest. “But I’m also tired, so...” 

“Can you just hold me?” 

The request is hesitant, but Hope doesn’t hesitate for a damn second in answering. 

“Of course,” she says, trying not to smile because she thinks her face might break out in half. 

She shifts closer, just enough to lightly press her front against Josie’s back. Her hands tremble when she wraps an arm around Josie’s middle, slotting her chin near the siphoner’s shoulder. She doesn’t have a lot of experience with spooning, but she imagines that she’s doing something right by the small, satisfied sound Josie makes when she positions herself more firmly behind her. 

Her wandering fingers graze the small sliver of skin exposed by Josie’s shirt riding up, completely on accident. The girl gasps slightly but doesn’t say anything, so Hope allows them to settle there. She tries not to think about the fact that she knows what it feels like to kiss Josie, tries not to think about the fact that they’re close enough that Hope could do a _lot_ of things, tries not to think about the practical sex-trance thing she had been hypnotized into earlier by the Siren—

Hope sleeps more easily than the night before. 


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “It can be good to be given what you want. It can be better, in the end, never to have it proved to you that this was what you wanted.” 
> 
> —Mary Renault

Hope opens her eyes slowly, feeling blissfully warm. She closes them almost immediately when bright lights hits her pupils, and burrows herself further into the blankets. Her body presses into something, and she barely thinks about it. 

It takes her a few moments to realize that that something is Josie, who is cuddling into her like her life depends on it. She opens her eyes wide, wondering if she should try to untangle herself to get out or simply wait for Josie to wake up.    
  


She ends up choosing the option of trying to escape. 

At first, she attempts to push the other girl away, only really seeing if anything will happen, but Josie just makes a small sound at the back of her throat and cuddles closer. So much closer that she can feel the siphoner’s breath directly at her pulse point. It sends blood rushing to her ears and a shiver down her spine, the sensation pointing her body to everything else that’s happening. 

One of Josie’s hands is positioned on top of her leg, moving restlessly enough that Hope almost squirms as it comes higher. Her lips are also dangerously near Hope’s own, and the tribrid lets out a deep breath to focus. 

She tries to quell the sudden surge of possessiveness quickly, yet her thoughts are too dangerous and tempting to stray from for so long. 

This must be a consequence of not shifting into her wolf for a while, she tells herself. She just needs to get up and leave, that’s all. 

She takes a steadying breath to concentrate once again, but loses all her resolve when a pair of lips mouth at a sensitive spot on her collarbone, likely completely on accident. She groans, loud and low. It’s enough for Josie to shoot up and out of sleep. 

She stands up on the other side of the bed, her cheeks pink and eyes wide. Hope sits up but doesn’t get out of bed, an apology on her lips even though everything had been Josie’s fault. 

“I’m sorry—“ 

Josie ignores her, glancing to Hope’s alarm clock. It’s nearly ten o’clock. 

“Oh god!” Josie screams, running a hand through her tangled hair. “I’m late for class!” 

Hope rolls her eyes, but Josie’s already running out of the room. 

“Bye!” she calls after her, and hears no response. She doesn’t mind, of course. She knows school is really important to Josie—she just doesn’t share the same values. 

After a couple of minutes of lazing about, Hope is able to bring herself to get out of bed and takes a look at the stack of assignments on her desk. She’s only missed a couple of days, yet she has about fifty different pages of homework to complete. She sits down for about three hours and completes half of it, her mind easily distracted.

In fact, she is having the hardest time focusing. Any time she tilts her head the wrong way, she’ll catch a whiff of Josie’s distinct scent and loses herself in it. Any time she glances backwards, her eyes fall upon the mess of sheets and pillows that is her bed, and she finds herself thinking about holding Josie in her arms again. 

Feeling restless and bored, Hope abandons her homework and resolves to go out on a run. She needs to shift desperately, and she has a feeling that this will go a long way to making her feel better. 

She sheds her clothing by the tree line, taking one step and changing into a large, white wolf on her second step. The feeling of her bones breaking and reforming settles the anxiety that had been building up until now, and she runs mindlessly for about an hour. She has too much energy, and every minute her paws hit the ground takes away from that. 

She’s been on edge since waking up on Tuesday, but hasn’t been able to fully admit it until now. She doesn’t remember much of the time she had been in a coma, but sometimes, she feels as though her body _does_. The hollow of her neck still stings whenever she stretches the wrong way, the muscles of her back still knotted and tense. 

Now, in her true fur, she feels fine. 

When she’s done, she changes back to her old clothes and visits the kitchen. Not realizing how hungry she is, she eats almost everything there and elects to take a shower. In the privacy of her own room, she turns the water to hot and allows steam to fog the mirror. She lets herself fantasize about Josie for about five minutes before she shuts the water off and changes into sweats. 

Classes have just ended, and Hope doesn’t want to be silly, but half of her expects Josie to come running back so they can spend more time together. Now that the tribrid knows absolutely that they’re each other’s soulmates, she doesn’t want to waste a single moment away from the other girl. 

Yet, an insecure part of her hates the thought of being clingy. What if Josie just couldn’t _wait_ to get away from Hope, and she had only burdened her last night by asking her to stay? 

Shaking her head, Hope waits until the moon begins to glow in the darkness of the sky to do anything at all. She picks up her phone, hovering over Josie’s contact. 

** [Hope 7:03] Do you want to come over?  **

She sends it, and immediately regrets it. God, she sounds like a horny teenager making a booty call. Hopefully Josie will understand the way she meant it. 

** [Josie 7:04] Sorry :( Something happened with Lizzie, maybe another night?  **

Hope reads the text message the second it pops up on her phone , and thinks to herself for a long couple of moments. What does Josie mean that something happened with Lizzie? Are they okay? Why did she have to be so _vague_? 

** [Hope 7:11] Sure **

Hope has to physically restrain herself to not say anything else, not wanting to sound desperate. But she _is_. She is so desperate that she almost finds herself standing up and knocking on Josie’s door herself. Yet, she can’t bring herself to, and Hope only plops herself in front of her desk and continues finishing the rest of her homework. 

Around nine, she’s done with every page and stuffs all of it into her book bag with no care. It should have really only taken her an hour to finish, but she had constantly been checking her phone for new text messages, thinking that Josie might take back her own message and instead ask if the offer was still out there to come over. But Josie never does, and Hope turns off the light by herself this time. 

She settles down into her bed, the mattress carrying only one person’s weight, and wishes Josie is next to her for what must be the hundredth time that night. She goes to sleep feeling painfully, unbearably alone. Hope checks her phone one last time before throwing it onto the floor. 

And although it had been so easy before, and there was a time where she was fine with it, Hope Mikaelson finds out that she does not like being alone at all. 


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “To be loved is a wave rushing past,  
the shoreline; filling every void.
> 
> Now that you love me,  
are you afraid to know me?  
Will distance tell you  
what your heart refuses to see? 
> 
> You’re too close to me, my love  
You’re missing everything.” 
> 
> —Lang Leav

The next morning, Alaric orders a school-wide quarantine to protect the students from the ever-present monster problem. 

He cites a number of reasons why: some monsters were taking advantage of naive children to hold power over them, some students had been consequentially injured, the monsters not in the school were causing problems outside, and if a monster was in the school it would be easier to contain it, etc. 

Hope had walked into the meeting late, so she had not really heard most of the reasons but figured they were bullshit anyways. 

“You may not, under any circumstances, leave the vicinity of this school. You may only stay in your rooms and your classes, and we will be setting a new curfew tonight at nine,” Alaric continues at the podium, his hand playing with the slight scruff of a beard he had started to grow. 

Someone stands up from their chair in the audience, and Hope recognizes a wolf from Jed’s pack. “What about werewolves? You can’t keep us in!” 

“While I don’t expect this lockdown to last until the next full moon, there will be preemptive measures put in place. If you do feel the need to shift, please come to me and we will work something out.” Alaric looks at Hope briefly during the last part and she rolls her eyes. The man just gives her a tight smile as he returns his gaze back to the boy who had asked the question. The werewolf nods and sits down, slightly disgruntled. 

“Now,” Alaric claps his hands against the podium, and Hope stands up from where she sits in the back, ready to leave the second Alaric dismisses them. “If you see anything out of the ordinary or suspicious at all, please let me or a teacher know. We _will_ get through this.” 

At his parting words, the students listening lean in slightly, expecting a pep talk or inspirational speech. For once, the headmaster does not give one. “That’s all. Get back to your classes, and spend your day wisely!” 

Hope rolls her eyes and walks to the dining hall, absolutely starving. She grabs a protein bar and looks around, her eyes searching for Josie by habit. It’s one she had never been able to get rid of since she met the girl, though whenever she does look, she is never truly conscience of the fact. 

She finds Josie sitting with her usual friends by a table, giggling over one thing or another. The tribrid smiles barely—a small pull at one corner of her lips—before turning away and sitting down somewhere else by herself. 

She takes out the legends and myths book in her bag, hoping to get some more information on Malivore before her classes start. She had figured out that the monster was created by a witch, vampire, and werewolf in the eleventh century and consumed supernatural creatures in a plight to rid the earth of sin, but she could not find out much else passed that. 

Every couple of pages she flips through, she glances up and makes sure that Josie’s still safe with her friends. 

For all Hope knows, one of them could be a monster...

“Hey,” a voice whispers sweetly in her ear, and Hope snaps her head around, startled. She relaxes when she sees that it’s just Josie, who sits next to her with a giggle. She sits down so close that their knees touch. 

“How did you sneak up on me? I’ve been watching—“ Hope cuts herself off before she can humiliate herself further. Josie raises her eyebrows. 

“You’ve been watching me?” she asks, like it’s endearing that Hope’s a creep. Hope splutters for words. 

“No.” She licks her lips. Swallows hard. “Yes.” 

Josie just laughs, eyeing the monster book on the table. She pouts but doesn’t say anything about it. 

“I was wondering if you wanted to come over tonight? Since we can’t really go out, I was thinking we could just watch movies or something?” Josie continues to babble on as Hope thinks it over. Part of her wants to ask if Lizzie is okay with that, but another part of her begs to leave well enough alone.   
  


That part wins. 

“Sure,” she agrees, a gentle smirk on her face. Josie instantly smiles in response, before she worries her lip with her teeth. 

“Maybe you could sleep over, too?” she adds, a little nervously, and Hope almost agrees to that as well before remembering something. 

“I don’t know if I can sleep over,” she says, biting the inside of her cheek. She regrets letting Josie down the second the words escape her mouth. “I have training with your dad in the morning.” 

“Oh.” Josie looks down, and Hope almost tells her that she’ll cancel it. But, she definitely doesn’t want to disappoint the girl’s father. Before Hope can speak again, Josie looks back up. “Can I come?” 

Hope knits her eyebrows together. 

“Like, to watch?” 

Josie blushes.

“I was thinking more...” she trails off, and Hope’s eyes widen in surprise. 

“You mean you want to train with us?” She has the brief image of Josie in tight leggings with a ponytail that exposes her neck. She darts her eyes away, almost slapping herself for where her thoughts had gone. “Yeah, of course. If your dad’s fine with it, I am.” 

God, why does her voice sound like that? 

“Thank you!” Josie nearly squeals, leaning forward in her excitement despite the fact that they’re  already so close. “So, I’ll see you after school?” 

“Yeah,” Hope nods, trying to play it cool. A lot of people are staring at them, but Hope has never minded the attention before. Overtime, she had even gotten used to it. “I’m going on a run at four and then I’ll come over.” 

“What?” 

Hope opens her mouth to repeat herself, thinking Josie hadn’t heard her, but the siphoner cuts her off. 

“You can’t do that,” she says, pouting again and wringing her hands together. “My dad just said that we can’t leave the school.” 

“Josie,” she tries not to laugh, putting her hand on the siphoner’s thigh on instinct. Josie glances down to it, an odd flush to her face, and Hope quickly removes her hand. “That doesn’t apply to me.” 

“Because you’re the all-powerful tribrid?” Josie’s nose wrinkles in annoyance. Hope has the intrusive thought that she looks too adorable. She keeps her lips sealed and nods, a serious expression on her face. 

“_Fine_,” Josie tells her, standing up as the bell rings to signal them to get going to class. “You can go for a run if you want, but if you do, you can’t come over.” 

“Are you serious?” Hope calls after her as she walks away. Josie doesn’t respond, and the tribrid traces her long legs before looking away and directly into the eyes of Penelope Park. 

She swallows thickly at getting caught, eyes dropping to the floor at Penelope’s heated look. It’s not like she had actually kissed Josie in front of her, Hope tries to remind herself, but she still feels kind of guilty. 

Hope forgets about it soon, and goes to all of her classes and turns in all of her missed work, not skipping any of them even though she really feels like it.

After school, Hope decides not to go on her run, resolving that she can just go after her movie night with Josie. It’s not like the other girl will notice or anything. 

She changes into sweats and grabs a bite to eat from the kitchen—she had not had lunch earlier—before walking to Josie’s room. She feels slightly nervous as she knocks on the door, remembering how anxious she had been last time she was here. 

She shakes off her unease and waits as the door swings over. The smile slips off her face as Lizzie opens it. 

“Hi,” she tries politely, with a tight-lipped smile. It’s fake, and Lizzie knows it. The blonde frowns and rolls her eyes. 

“Josie, your little puppy plaything is here!” she turns around and calls out.

Josie comes out of the bathroom, wearing a pair of shorts and a similar t-shirt to the one Hope has on. 

“I’m not a dog,” Hope states, her lip curling in irritation slightly. 

“You smell like one,” Lizzie says, and Hope tries not to sniff herself insecurely. She was sure she had smelled okay when she left. 

“I do _not_.” Hope meets Josie’s eyes, pleading. Is Lizzie going to stay with them the _whole_ night? “Do you want to just come back to my room?” 

“Oh, calm down,” Lizzie huffs exasperatedly, putting on a small jacket. “I’m leaving right now. Like I would ever want to put myself through a movie night sandwiched between you two.” 

She rolls her eyes again and leaves without saying goodbye to either of them, which has Josie pouting. 

“Hey,” Josie tells her shyly once the door shuts behind the blonde, like Hope had only just walked into the room a second ago. 

“Hey.” She smirks, but nothing about it is cocky. 

“You know, you’re going to have to be nice to her sooner or later,” Josie says, patting the space next to her as she sits down, much like she had the other night. It’s the way she says it that makes something in Hope’s chest rise with profound happiness—like Josie and Hope will be stuck together forever. 

“I choose later.” Hope sits down as well, and after a slight shuffle where Josie all but forces her to lie down, they begin watching the movies Josie’s picked out. The girl even siphons magic off of Hope to shut the blinds and dim the lights. 

During the entire first movie, Josie tells Hope all about her day. Hope learns that, during fourth period, Josie’s favorite pencil broke in half when her concentration had slipped during a spell. She learns that Josie had almost started crying before she realized that she could fix it, and she learns all about Josie’s weird Latin teacher and the gross boy in her History of Magic class that keeps sticking his finger into his nose like no one can see him. She finds herself completely enraptured as Josie talks, not getting bored but only captivated by the most mundane of details.  


As the movie continues, Josie begins to cuddle more and more into her, and by the start of the second movie, she’s basically laying on top of Hope.

Hope tries not to get distracted, but fails miserably. She can barely remember the name of the movie Josie just put on. It’s really too embarrassing how much the tribrid loses herself around the other girl. 

However, Hope soon has plenty of reasons to lose her focus. 

Sometime during the second movie, a warm hand slides up her left leg, so slowly that she doesn’t make anything of it at first. She continues to watch the movie, trying not to focus on Josie’s hot breathes right against her earlobe as the girl leans into her side. 

Once the hand starts to slide up well-above her knee, Hope quickly realizes where this is going. She shifts her body to dislodge the other girl, but only succeeds in allowing Josie’s fingers to skim a sensitive spot on her thigh. She clamps her lips shut to prevent herself from making any sound, but a small noise escapes the space between her teeth. 

“Are you okay?” Josie whispers, a small puff of air caressing the side of her neck. Hope swallows and decides that she can’t trust her voice. She almost curses herself—here Josie was, all concerned and innocent, and there Hope was, thinking the girl was trying to make a move. 

“Hmm,” she hums, her eyes staring harshly into the TV screen, not seeing the TV at all. For a long moment, she thinks Josie’s stopped and that she can relax, but then a second hand wanders at the edge of her thin top. 

It strays at the hem for a full minute before traveling to the skin beneath it and under the shirt. Hope clenches her teeth as the other girl’s nails scrape gently against the toned muscles of her lower abdomen. The muscles jump underneath the delicate, featherlight touch, and the tribrid almost does something humiliating. Like moaning.   


God, is Josie trying to seduce her or something? 

“Do you want me to change the movie?” The words barely register in Hope’s head, her body still much too aware of Josie’s drifting fingers. 

“No.” Her voice is so rough that Hope tries to clear it, to no avail. “Why?” 

“You don’t look very interested in it.” 

“No,” Hope tells her, her voice still strained. The fingers are dangerously close to the waistband of her sweatpants now. Every inch down sends jolts along Hope’s skin. “I _love_ Harry Potter.” 

“We’re watching Star Wars,” Josie deadpans, and in a panic, Hope’s eyes flicker to the screen. Shit. They _are_ watching Star Wars.

“Right,” Hope avoids her eyes, looking back at the screen. She can now see where she had went wrong—she had seen a glowing lightsaber and had assumed it was a spell or something. It was an _honest_ mistake. 

The hands on her don’t move much for another ten minutes, and it makes Hope practically sweat with anxiety. And then...

The finger at her waistband starts rhythmically tapping, every slight pressure enough to thoroughly destroy Hope’s insides as she becomes forced to pretend nothing is happening. 

Not being able to take it, Hope dares to look over to find Josie watching her very curiously, so close that Hope could maybe lean forward and claim her lips with her own. A knot double-ties itself in her throat and she moves one of her own restless hands forward to wrap it around Josie’s wrist. 

She grips the skin tight enough to halt the rhythmic tapping and give her an inch of peace. She doesn’t know what to say—what _could_ she say given their position? With Josie’s hand half into Hope’s pants, and Hope holding her from going any further? It had felt so long since they last kissed, too. 

She watches Josie’s eyes flicker down to Hope’s lips and up to her eyes before lingering at her lips. The siphoner painstakingly removes her hands from Hope’s body, and for some reason Hope finds herself not liking that at all. 

“Can I—“ 

“Mhmm—“ 

“_Mhmm_.” 

Hope nearly moans with the first touch of her lips to Josie’s because she’s that fucking horny. Everything the siphoner had been doing until this moment had turned her on so much that Hope is nearly shaking with the sudden urge to reverse their positions and make Josie happy. 

The second Josie parts her lips, she slips her tongue between them and explores her way into the girl’s mouth. There’s nothing gentle about it, but Hope can’t find it in herself to care much. Her mind is a maze of running thoughts, and she can’t focus on a single one for more than a second at a time. 

When Josie backs up to catch her breath, she moves all her hair to one side at the same time, and Hope sits up underneath her and kisses her newly exposed neck. Her lips press fervently against soft skin, trying to decide if she should take things further or not. 

She makes her decision as Josie sighs into her ear, and she sucks onto the siphoner’s pulse point with sharp, careful teeth. Half of her still reels in shock that she can get away with doing this. 

“That feels good,” Josie tells her, almost breathlessly, her hand against Hope’s nape to guide her lips lower. It only sets a deeper fire within the pit of Hope’s stomach, eager to satisfy the other girl. Desire courses in her veins, boiling her blood to molten liquid. She suddenly feels too hot.

“Yeah?” 

“_Oh_,” the siphoner pants as Hope’s hands grope their way to her ass. They settle there, squeezing only slightly enough that Josie honest-to-God whimpers. Hope’s abdomen twists, and she tries to suppress the unhelpful groan at the back of her throat. “Mhmm.” 

“Are you okay with—“ 

“_Yes_.” 

Hope slips her hands underneath Josie’s shirt from the back, sliding them across her front to revel in warm, sensitive skin. She absentmindedly notes that they’re dangerously close to the right side of the bed, but Hope can’t think about that for longer than a moment and she doubts that Josie cares much. 

Instead, the siphoner arches into her touch, causing an inappropriate thrill to shoot down Hope’s spine. She flexes her fingers by accident in response, just on the underside of Josie’s bra, much harder than she probably should. 

The girl responds by dropping her head to the juncture of Hope’s shoulder and crying out with a muted gasp. Hope allows her eyes to fall shut at the sound, but they startle wide open when Josie presses her lips to Hope’s collarbone and murmurs directly against her neck:

“I saved myself for you, did you know?” 

Hope falls off the bed. 


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Your skin smells like light. I think you are the moon.” 
> 
> —JC

“Oh my god! _Hope_!” 

Said Hope lies on the floor, her back to the ground and her eyes to the ceiling. Although it wasn’t a hard fall, she still feels winded and pants slightly. 

She still can’t believe all of that just happened. Did Josie _really_ say that or had she imagined it? 

Hope sits up and winces as Josie hovers over her and turns the lights back on. 

“How can I help?” Josie asks as she examines Hope’s terribly red face. She reaches down and the tribrid stands up quickly. 

“No, keep your hands to yourself,” Hope dodges Josie’s helping hand, mostly teasing. The girl blushes and Hope’s eyes dilate. She rubs her back even though it doesn’t really hurt. “You’ve done enough.” 

“Come on,” Josie laughs as Hope pouts, not serious at all. “It’s not like _I_ pushed you off.” 

“No.” Hope looks away stubbornly, sitting pointedly against Josie’s desk. She’s still embarrassed. “Instead, you just sat on my lap and _seduced_ me.” 

“I seduced you?” Josie giggles, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear as she steps into Hope’s personal space. The tribrid watches with parted lips.Just a week ago she had only dreamed of being this up close with the siphoner. “So it worked?” 

Hope bristles, crossing her arms. “I knew it.” 

Josie blushes but she still looks overly proud of herself. Hope wants to stay in this moment forever. “What? I can’t kiss my soulmate?” 

She leans forward, putting a hand on Hope’s thigh on the desk and aiming for Hope’s lips with her own. Hope avoids it and presses a soft kiss to the siphoner’s forehead instead. 

“Josie, wait.” She won’t allow herself to become some horny animal, not when she could hurt Josie if she gets caught up in the moment too much. The brunette deserves more than that. “We should probably talk about...you know.” 

Josie raises her eyebrows, confused. Hope feels like slapping herself on the forehead. 

“...Going further, I mean,” she clarifies cautiously. She really means—sex. She can tell Josie understands because her cheeks turn that temping pink once again. “We don’t have to...” 

“Why?” 

“Well, I don’t want to hurt you,” she explains, her breath catching in her throat at Josie’s rejected expression. “Sometimes I lose myself and forget my strength, and if that means harming you—“ 

“No,” Josie cuts her off, like she can’t even hear any of it. “You won’t.” 

“Okay.” Hope looks around the room, struggling internally. “If not that, then what about the fact that you and I have barely talked up until a couple of days ago?” 

“We’ve already waited so _long_, Hope—“ 

“Okay, what about—“ 

“Do you not find me attractive, or something?” 

Josie appears as if she’s teasing, but Hope knows that she’s serious and actually thinking about it by the sad look in her eye. 

“No, of course—of _course_ not.” Hope trembles over her words in her rush to answer. “I think you’re very attractive.” 

She thinks back to a couple of moments ago, and how much she had liked having Josie against her, how much she had enjoyed their lips meeting again and again, how crazy she had become at the sight of Josie’s neck, the animal she had become at the first feeling of a throbbing pulse—overcome with the suddenly desperate need to mark Josie. 

Yes, Hope finds her very, very attractive. 

“Then why can’t we have—go further?” 

Hope’s throat bobs at the slip up, but she tries not to falter. 

“It’s too soon,” she tells her, turning away to stare at a distant point on the wall. She needs to slow everything down before Josie hates her. They need to do this properly. “We don’t know each other.” 

If Josie had known how much Hope truly wanted it, she would be disgusted with the tribrid. If Josie had known what she had been thinking only minutes before, she would have banished her from the room. 

“We _do_, though,” Josie insists, her voice almost a whine. Hope sighs, finally looking at her.

  
  
She remembers pointed teeth and filthy skin, her back against a wall, a demon in her face.   


_ “What about the small fact that you mistook me for her in less than thirty seconds? Do you really know her at all?”  _

_ “I do.”  _

“No, we don’t.” 

It was true. Sure, over the years, Hope had observed a lot about the other girl, but they had never really _seriously_ talked about themselves. 

“I want to do this properly...” Hope trails off, and Josie rolls her eyes. 

“You’re always so _proper_,” the siphoner snaps slightly, finding a seat back on the bed, and Hope laughs and sits next to her. 

“I just...” Hope takes a deep breath, trying to tell herself that she can’t act like some sex-crazed teenager. “Let’s just wait a little while, okay?” 

Josie pouts. 

“How long’s a while?” 

God, the girl’s impatient.

“I don’t know,” Hope says, thinking. “A few weeks or months?” 

“_Months_?” Josie drops her jaw dramatically, appearing scandalized. Hope can no longer picture the innocent girl she thought the siphoner was a week ago. “I have _needs_!” 

Hope chokes on the air in her throat, and Josie blushes and looks down, as if she’s only just realized what she said. Hope gets over it first. 

“Oh, _do_ you now?” the tribrid teases as she recovers, smirking slightly, trying not to think about the mental pictures those words bring up. 

“Shut up,” Josie growls, looking like a small animal trying to appear scary. 

“No, no,” Hope raises her eyebrows. “Tell me, how did you _ever_ manage to take care of those _needs_ without me?” 

Josie becomes an alluring pink and smacks her on the arm, embarrassed. Hope lets herself be pushed back and only laughs. 

“Really,” she continues, “I want to hear it.” 

“Oh?” Josie leans forward, narrowing her eyes. Hope’s laughter cuts off as she swallows thickly, watching as the girl comes dangerously close and grips the bed sheets. “First, I—“ 

Hope clamps a hand over her mouth and one behind her head, and Josie giggles into her palm. 

“We should probably finish the movie,” Hope quickly says, her own face now red, their positions reversed as she’s left blushing and Josie’s left laughing. She releases Josie and moves to the side. 

“Are you sure?” Josie smiles coyly. “Because I can keep going...” 

“Yes—I’m, I’m sure,” Hope coughs out, avoiding the siphoner’s eyes, her own glued to the screen, where the Star Wars movie had kept playing during their entire..._thing_. 

They watch another two movies before Josie yawns and Hope sits up to leave. The door makes her pause as it opens quietly, and the tribrid watches as Lizzie tiptoes in the dark room as if she doesn’t want to get caught doing something bad. She closes the door silently and locks it. 

“Lizzie?” The blonde jumps a mile into the air. “We can both _see_ you.” 

She puts a hand on her chest dramatically and breathes deeply as she frowns at Josie. “It’s midnight. I assumed you were sleeping, like a normal person.” 

She turns to Hope. “And why are you still here?” 

Hope shrugs. “Lost track of time.” 

Lizzie pulls a face. “_Ugh_. Even that sounds dirty now.” 

“Whatever,” Hope ignores her as Josie blushes for the hundredth time that night, getting up. “I’m leaving now.” 

“Thank God,” Lizzie sighs, pushing Hope aside from the bed and jumping in next to her sister despite her own bed nearby. Hope trips over herself in the dark—barring all tribrid abilities—and she turns back briefly. 

“Meet me at the gym at six?” she asks Josie, and the girl nods before collapsing into her pillow again. Hope could not find it in herself to be offended at all. She steals one last look at the peaceful look on Josie’s face before flipping her sister off and opening the door quietly. 

She forgets about the new curfew, and walks loudly through the hallways. She’s about three feet from her dorm room before she hears a familiar voice. 

“Not so fast.” Hope rolls her eyes and turns around to look Alyssa Chang in the eye. 

“What now?” she grumbles. Alyssa only smiles. 

“It’s past curfew, and you’re not in your room,” she says. Hope sighs. 

“My room is right there.” She points, and Alyssa giggles in glee. 

“Exactly. You’re not in it.” She takes out a note pad and writes something down on it before handing it to Hope. Hope reads it with a scowl. 

“A week of detention? You’re _not_ fucking serious.” 

“Trust me,” Alyssa beams. “I’m dark-magic serious.” 

She turns around and starts to saunter away, her hips swaying from side to side. 

“Do you even have the power to do this?” she calls after her, but Alyssa barely turns around. 

“If you don’t believe me, you can take it up with the headmaster,” she suggests.

Of _fucking_ course, Alyssa Chang had somehow become a stupid hall monitor. 

Hope opens her door seething, her exhaustion forgotten. She did _not_ have the time for detention. Whatever, she would get out of it somehow, she knows. 

She looks at the note again, trying to determine if it’s legitimate or if Alyssa was simply bluffing. She turns it over, finding the mean girl’s loopy handwriting:

** _ Call me.  _ **

Underneath isa phone number and a heart in red pen. 

Hope doesn’t hesitate before burning the note to pieces and tossing the ashes in her room’s trashcan.

Before she falls asleep, she glances at the moon waxing outside her bedroom window. It calls to her gently, and she finds herself longing for something other than changing into her wolf. 

—

She wakes up thirty minutes early to get changed, putting on her usual work out clothes and making sure her ponytail is perfect even though she knows it’ll get messed up along the way. 

She’s super tired from going to sleep late and waking up early, but she isn’t really bothered by the fact. She had a great time with her soulmate yesterday, and can’t wait for a great time today, too—even if she’ll spend it with Alaric between them. 

She makes it to the gym ten minutes before Alaric’s supposed to train with her, but finds him there already. 

“Hey,” she tells him, and he whirls around to her quickly. She notices that he’s not wearing his usual work-out clothes, but denim pants and a leather jacket. 

“Hey, sorry, but I can’t train with you today,” he says. “Landon found his brother, Clarke, or I guess Clarke found him, but he’s also related to Malivore, so I’m going to take off with Dorian and pick them all up.” 

_ What? Landon has a brother?  _

“What? How much have I actually missed?” Hope’s eyes widen, asking the question a second time because the man had clearly not answered right the first time she had asked him. 

“Nothing much, _honestly_. I let Landon go so he could find some more about his past and Malivore. Don’t worry, I sent Rafael to look after him. They’ve been checking up with me daily while I’ve been dealing with the monsters here,” he explains, tapping his foot like he wants to leave sooner than later. 

“I should go, too, then. Let me just get changed.”

“No, that’s okay—“ 

“Hey,” Josie’s voice comes from behind Hope. Hope doesn’t turn around just yet. “What’s happening?” 

“We’re leaving,” she tells the siphoner, too ashamed to look at her. Josie _might_ just kill her. 

“Why?” Hope decides to glance at her then, finding the other girl in a black pair of leggings with a crop shirt. Hope can see the strap of her sports bra on her shoulder, digging into the curve of her neck left uncovered by her ponytail. 

Her shirt is short enough that Hope can see a sliver of the skin of her stomach. The tribrid tears her eyes away, feeling guilty for so obviously checking her out in front of her father. 

“Well, sweetie, Landon found his brother, and he needs my help, so I can’t train with you two today,” Alaric repeats, and Josie deflates. 

“But you said you’d teach me.” 

“You and Hope can still train!” He smiles cheerfully. 

“Um, _no_, I’m coming with,” Hope interrupts. 

“No, you’re not.” He shakes his head. “You kids should have fun.” He grins again, almost so forced that the expression’s frightening. He was obviously trying to act okay with Niklaus Mikaelson’s daughter and his own being soulmates officially. “I don’t need you, Hope; Landon said that Clarke doesn’t look evil.” 

“Doesn’t _look_ evil? Can a phoenix suddenly read minds now?” Alaric gives her a look. 

“Okay,” she relents, because Josie does seem a little disappointed next to her. If she’s not needed, then she might as well spend time with her soulmate. “Just keep me updated.” 

Alaric doesn’t respond to that. “Bye girls, have fun!” 

He almost dashes away, and Hope turns back to Josie to find her with her arms crossed. 

“Really?” 

Hope lifts her shoulders with disinterest. “How’d you sleep?” 

“Don’t change the subject.” Josie’s lips purse, and she looks off to the side before fixing Hope with a pointed look. “You just tried to go on another silly monster mission.” 

Hope frowns. “It’s not _silly_.” 

Josie just shakes her head. 

“It’s not.” 

“Alright.” She sighs, dropping her duffel bag to the floor. She had forgotten she was even holding it. “Do you want to start now or just keep lecturing me?” 

Josie stares like she’s actually thinking about it, and Hope arches an eyebrow at her. “Fine.”

She drops her bag to the floor as well and tightens her ponytail. For her part, Hope tries to appear as confident as she can in front of the other girl. 

“Okay, show me your fighting stance.” 

Hope watches as Josie puts her fists out in front of her chest and just stands there. She can’t resist chuckling, which makes Josie pout again. 

“It’s not bad...” _It’s so bad._ “Here...” 

Without thinking, Hope moves forward and places her hands on Josie’s hips, widening her stance. She pretends not to hear the siphoner’s breath catching, and removes them once she’s satisfied. Her fingertips tingle with the memory of the slight pressure several seconds after she’s let go. 

“You’re right-handed, right?” she murmurs, and Josie doesn’t reply for a long moment. 

“Josie?” 

The girl snaps her head up and clears her throat. “Um, yeah.” 

“Right,” Hope nods, wishing she could touch her without feeling like a predator. “So you’re going to want to position your left side in front to protect your dominant side.” 

Josie does as she’s told and Hope tries not to smile. “Better?” 

“Yes,” Hope agrees. “Now we have to fix your arms.” 

“What’s wrong with my arms?” 

“Nothing!” Hope rushes to say, when she realizes that Josie’s just joking. She giggles before playfully holding her arms out like she’s being handcuffed for the tribrid to place a little above her chest. Hope makes sure that she’s in control of her fingers and that she doesn’t do anything _inappropriate_. 

“Make sure your elbows don’t touch your body like that,” Hope adds, and Josie nods attentively. 

Hope shows her a couple of punches—jabs, hooks, crosses, uppercuts, the works—before they move onto sparring. 

Josie tries for a jab that she throws too much of her body into and Hope easily moves out of the way. 

“_Breathe_,” she tells her, unable to not come off as creepy. So what, she had been listening to the other girl and had realized she hadn’t been breathing. One can’t really blame her. “You stop breathing when you punch. Jab. Breathe. Move away. Breathe.” 

Josie nods and follows with a hook to Hope’s jaw. Hope blocks it and sighs. “You’re too predictable.” 

Josie listens, a nice flush to her skin that Hope can’t help admiring. She’s worked herself into a light sweat while a single piece of Hope’s hair hasn’t moved out of place. 

“Try to feint for my head and then go for my body, like this.” Hope distracts Josie with a jab to her chin followed by a sharp punch to her stomach. Not wanting to hurt her, she doesn’t put any strength in it. 

“See?” Josie nods, smiling a little bit. 

“If you think someone’s going for your stomach.” Hope taps her own abdomen. “Try to tighten your muscles there. Getting hit with a relaxed stomach hurts like hell.” 

“Also, tilt your chin down a little bit,” she continues. “If someone can touch your throat, you’re dead.” 

A flash of a shapeshifter enters into Hope’s mind before she lets it go completely. 

Josie places a hand over her throat and gulps, maybe imagining something similar. 

They continue to spar for a long time, mostly Josie throwing the punches and Hope dodging them. Hope can tell that the other girl is growing frustrated that she can’t land anything. 

“You’re cute when you’re bossy,” Josie tells her at one point, and Hope gets a little distracted before she finds a fist coming straight for her temple. She defends against it effortlessly, bringing her arm down and jumping wide over Josie with her werewolf strength. 

“Where did you go?” Josie mutters, and Hope tries not to laugh behind her. She waits patiently, and then—realizing that the siphoner isn’t going to turn around—she brings her elbow around and traps her into a light choke-hold. 

“Never let your opponent outside of your vision,” she whispers directly against Josie’s ear and the girl startles against her, but Hope keeps her in a tight hold with her second arm wrapped around her waist. 

“I _didn’t_!” Josie insists, backing up into her slightly. Hope can clearly smell her raspberry shampoo this close to her. She shuts her eyes gently, trying not to make it too obvious that’s smelling the other girl. 

“I gave you plenty of time to turn around and you still didn’t face me,” she says, and the tribrid can practically see the pout on Josie’s lips even though she’s not looking at her face. 

“Well, it’s not fair when you do your wolf thing.” Josie huffs and turns around in Hope’s arms when the tribrid lets her. They’re so close that Hope can feel her breathing softly against her lips. She could just move her head an inch forward and they would be— 

Hope gets slammed onto her back in less than a second’s time, Josie’s victorious face hanging directly in front of her own. She gets deja-vu from the night before. Hope wrinkles her nose. 

“Good one.” 


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “There is a monster under your bed. A monster at your window. A monster any place you imagine one. You project your monsters on the world.” 
> 
> —Welcome to Nightvale

As the days pass quickly, Hope finds herself actually having fun. 

She spends her mornings training with Josie, and sometimes Alaric joins them. Those practices in particular are slightly nerve-wracking, but the father of two never tries to give her the shovel talk. That somehow makes Hope more nervous when she thinks about it too much. She would much rather get it over with, if she’s being honest. 

Josie is steadily improving her fighting skills, at least. She still can’t land a single hit on Hope unless the tribrid gets distracted, but she’s definitely getting there. Hope feels terribly proud just thinking about it. 

Sometimes she even tells Josie so, and the girl always answers with a beautiful, beaming smile that Hope can’t help returning. She loves these moments the best, next to the times that Josie wanders into her bed late at night. 

More often than not, Hope finds herself as the big spoon and comforts the siphoner after another monster or Malivore mission. 

The monsters start to come more quickly, too. 

One day Hope and Alaric meet an Agrabuamelu an hour away from Mystic Falls. Hope calls it Ugly instead of that long ass name, perfectly describing the half-scorpion, half-man whose sickly vertebrae protrudes from nearly-transparent, disgusting skin. Fortunately for them, Dorian swiftly researches the Mesopotamian mythology that births the monster and they’re able to find its weakness—killing Ugly with its own venom. 

_ Once again, Hope discovers Josie waiting for her when she gets back to the school. She prepares a long speech including a detailed apology when the other girl just kisses her on the cheek and reveals a plate of food she had stolen from the kitchen.  _

_ “I figured you must be hungry.”  _

_ “I—“ Hope’s breath catches in her throat, oddly touched yet not surprised. “Thank you. Stay with me, please?”  _

_ “Of course.”  _

Another night finds the headmaster and the Mikaelson in the forest outside the school fighting a giant boar. Hope laughs so hard that she loses her focus and ends up with a sharp horn in her thigh when the monster rams into her with its large head. Josie almost kills her for that particular one. The tribrid can still remember the conversation. 

_ “Oh my god, it hurts!”  _

_ “Don’t be ridiculous, Josie, you’re not the one with a horn in your leg.”  _

_ “It’s soulmate sympathy pain!”  _

_ “That’s not even a real thing!”  _

Hope’s favorite monster she encounters is a demon named Asmodeus. He brings perverse sexual thoughts and desires to the surface, and Hope gets one really, really intense make-out session with her soulmate before she realizes she’s possessed. 

_ Hope holds the siphoner in place against the door as she yanks it closed, grabbing her wrists and pinning them above her head. Her eyes glow red as she presses another kiss to Josie’s shoulder before whispering into her ear: _

_ “Do you want me to fuck you against my desk? I had a pretty good dream about that one time.”  _

_ Silence.  _

_ “Um. I don’t think I meant to say that.”  _

Her least favorite monster comes in the form of some combined—three Greek creatures named Briareus, Cottus, and Gyges. They tower over Hope and Alaric, almost as tall as the trees around them, and the tribrid tries not to gag when her eyes pick out a dozen limbs shifting and moving underneath their skin like ripples of a lake. They actually don’t do much damage passed launching a bunch of huge rocks Hope’s way, but it still exhausts her to dodge all of them. 

_ “All he did was throw rocks at you and you still wouldn’t let me come?”  _

_ “Not he. Them. Besides, it’s not safe for you.”  _

_ “Fine. I’ll just ignore you until you come to your senses.”  _

_ “How do you plan on that? We’re soulmates—“  _

_ The door shuts in Hope’s face.  _

Most of the monsters they battle are actually dumber than a bag of rocks, and the tribrid knows deep down that it would be great practice for Josie, but she can’t risk her getting hurt. It’s better to have Josie be angry at her than dead. So what, if that’s the only thing they fight about? 

The sound of someone dropping their backpack next to her startles Hope, and she shakes herself out of her tiresome thoughts. Somehow, Josie actually had managed to ignore her for most of the morning coming into the afternoon now, and Hope can’t help wondering how long this is going to go on for. 

“Hey, _Partner_,” Alyssa Chang giggles, sitting down beside her in their Advanced Latin class. Hope grumbles a curse underneath her breath before turning to her. 

“We’re not partners,” she tells the other girl, who annoyingly giggles again, leaning into Hope’s personal space. 

“I blackmailed Mister Chadian.” She lowers her voice, like she’s letting Hope in on a secret. Her eyes flit to the their teacher before actually—actually—winking at Hope. “So I guess we are _now_.” 

“Since when have you _ever_ wanted to sit next to me?” Hope wrinkles her nose, looking at Alyssa suspiciously. She still hasn’t forgotten the time she had tried to give the tribrid detention...and her number. 

“Aw.” Alyssa slaps her shoulder, and Hope pretends to feel it. “You’re too cute for your own good. But, no need to act so oblivious, Hopey.” 

“Hopey?” _Hopey_ glares at her but Alyssa doesn’t say anything as the teacher starts the lesson. 

During lunch, Hope ends up sitting alone because Josie is still ignoring her. In fact, it seems that the siphoner has forced all their other friends to ignore her as well, which makes the tribrid feel heavy for something she never cared about before. 

“Good.” Hope clenches her eyes shut, wishing that she’s only having a nightmare as that same, irritating Alyssa Chang sits next to her again. “I wanted to get you alone.” 

The evil girl says it so inappropriately and scandalously that Hope looks around to make sure no one hears. 

“That’s too bad.” The tribrid stands up to leave, but a hand twists around her arm and pulls her back down. 

“You must be upset that all your friends are ignoring you,” Alyssa tries to empathize, but on her, empathy looks fake. Hope whips her head at her. Is it that obvious? Since when had Alyssa Chang become so...observant? “Especially _Josie_.” 

She puts emphasis on the name and then carefully watches Hope for a reaction. She doesn’t give her one. 

“What is up with you two, anyways?” Alyssa prods, keeping a false, nonchalant smile glued to her face. “You’re _practically_ attached at the hip, now.” 

Hope frowns, remembering that they’re not supposed to tell anyone that they’re soulmates yet. “Nothing. We’re good friends, that’s all.” 

The reason Josie hasn’t wanted to tell anyone that they’re together is for the sake of her ex Penelope’s feelings. She insists that getting into a new relationship so quickly after their break up would hurt the other girl, and throwing it in her face is not much better. Hope herself is completely fine with it since anyone that gets close to her ends up dying, so if her enemies don’t know about it—well, all the better. And, it’s not like Penelope will tell anyone. 

So, she allows Alyssa to chat her ear off, searching in vain around the dining hall for her soulmate. Several minutes later, she finally spots her coming in through the entrance, and her stomach jolts when she sees that Josie is already watching her. The girl bolts once she’s been caught. 

Hope gets up quickly to follow her, ignoring Alyssa’s offended look, and catches Josie just before she turns into another hallway. 

“Hey,” she pulls the other girl back by her wrist, which Josie quickly shrugs away. Hope scowls. “What’s wrong?” 

Josie sighs before stopping. Dread pools in the tribrid’s stomach at the heavy pause. “Nothing. Go away.” 

Hope feels it like a punch to the abdomen. She sucks in a breath as Josie looks everywhere but her. 

“Really?” She backs up slightly, wondering why her heart is pounding so viciously. She brings a hand to her forehead as it begins to hurt, too. Josie doesn’t answer, and Hope’s shoulders deflate. She drops her hands limply to her sides, clamping down on the urge to reach out and touch the other girl. It passes. “Alright. If that’s what you want...” 

She trails off suggestively, expecting Josie to cut her off but she doesn’t. She shakes her head, feeling overwhelmingly disappointed, and starts to walk away. 

“Of course it’s not what I want!” Hope freezes at the clear anger in Josie’s voice. How did it come to this? “It’s just, I ignore you for a _minute_ and then you’re off messing around with Alyssa Chang—“ 

“Messing around with _Alyssa Chang_?” Hope repeats, feeling dumbfounded. “Can you even hear yourself? You’ve been depriving me of human contact for _hours_!” 

Josie splutters. 

“It’s barely been half a day!” she whisper-yells, almost laughing with astonishment. “You used to go entire _years_ without talking to a single person your age!” 

Hope recoils as silence slaps her in the face. It takes every inch of emotion out of her skin, and leaves her with acid stuck in her throat. She can tell by Josie’s own face that she regrets saying it immediately. However, she can’t turn away from her hurt, and it shows in the roughness of her voice. 

“You’re right. I’m sorry,” Hope says bitterly, wishing that she had not been so foolish as to show her emotions so plainly. “I guess I got used to it. Won’t happen again.”

How could she have been so stupid as to think she had any friends of her own? This conversation was a painful reminder that they were all Josie’s. She briefly wonders about Landon and Rafael. Alaric hadn’t been able to convince them to come back after their meeting with Landon’s brother—the boy had declared that the three of them were still in need of exploring their pasts to get to their futures, or whatever that means?—but Alaric suspects that they’ll be back in a matter of time once they figure things out.

And then, Alaric. Alaric was basically her only real friend at this school, and of course it didn’t count because he was twice her age and more. 

Hope can’t even feel her legs when she turns around and leaves. 

“Hope, please.” Josie chases after her. Hope won’t face her, she’s too embarassed. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean that.” 

“I know,” Hope says, her voice coming out so clipped that it surprises herself. “I need—“

She takes a deep breath. She _needs_ Josie. What is she doing? 

“I need some time to myself. I’ll see you later.” 

She doesn’t turn around for Josie’s response, electing to just continue walking before she loses her nerve. For her part, the siphoner doesn’t try chasing after her again. 

Hope holes herself up in her room for the rest of the day, missing the rest of her classes and forgoing dinner. She feels utterly lonely and hates every second of it, wishing she could take back all the words she had said to Josie in the heat of a single moment. 

Yet, the world is not so forgiving and instead Hope is left to brood alone. Perhaps, the universe had done enough for her already. At least, having Josie as her soulmate was much more than she could have ever hoped for, and now she needed to get her crap together and fix the mess she had created. 

A knock raps against her door and Hope sits up from her bed, knowing who’s behind it before she can see them. 

“Hope? I’m pretty sure you’re in there...” Josie’s voice sounds muffled through the door, and Hope smiles in relief at being able to hear it. “Unless you’re all wolfed-out in the forest, then I sound really stupid right now.” 

Hope checks her appearance in her dresser mirror before swinging the door open. Her eyes immediately lock onto Josie, pulled to the siphoner with a similar magnet to gravitational force. 

She immediately admires the other girl, dressed in skimpy pajamas and carrying a plate of food. Her hair is in a ponytail, only emphasizing her elegant neck and the dip of her collarbone. 

Hope raises her eyebrows. 

“You missed dinner,” Josie states, gesturing to the plate with her hand. She all but throws it into Hope’s arms, and the tribrid has to rely on her wolf reflexes to make sure it doesn’t fall to the floor. 

Hope wants to tell her that she hadn’t been hungry at all, that she had actually been nauseous instead, and that she had felt their small distance aching into her body as if they were worlds apart. 

“I...”

She loves her so, so much, yet—nothing. Her heart had stopped beating the second Josie knocked on the door, and her lungs had been torn out from her chest hours ago. She can barely breathe, can barely feel the blood pumping through her body. 

“It’s okay, don’t talk,” Josie tells her, lacing their fingers together as they sit down on the bed. Their hands intertwine like the right key for a very tricky lock, and Hope’s eyes linger on the perfect contrast of pale skin to tan. She can’t remember the last time they had held hands. Her mind is too muddled by their current predicament, and the nerves underneath her skin are thrumming to attention. “Me first.” 

“I’m sorry, for everything,” she starts. “I didn’t mean for this to blow up so much. I was just upset that you don’t think I’m strong enough to fight monsters, and I know you’re trying to protect me, it just seems like you don’t trust me enough to protect _myself_ sometimes—“ 

“I _do_ trust you,” Hope interrupts, glad when Josie gives her the space to continue. She searches for the right words. “I just love you _more_. If anything ever happened to you, I don’t know what I would do with myself.”

Josie smiles almost shyly, pink tinging her cheeks. 

“What?” 

“We haven’t said that for a long time.” Hope tilts her head in confusion, and Josie immediately clarifies. “I love you, I mean.” 

Hope grasps their hands and kisses the top of Josie’s softly, feeling all the tension seep out of her at once. She smirks. “Forgive me. I’ll make sure to remind you more often.” 

Josie laughs and throws her head back. 

“What now?” Hope pouts. 

“No, no,” she shakes her head. “It’s just something my mom said.” 

“Well, you can’t laugh like that and not tell me,” Hope scowls, pretending to be annoyed. Josie just laughs harder until Hope pins her with a look. 

“Mom told me that if you’re anything like your father, that you might be a bit...” She looks around as she tries to find the words. “‘Chivalrous’ and ‘old-fashioned,’ I think were the words she used?” 

Hope blushes. Well...she _had_ just kissed the other girl’s hand. It was somewhat of a tradition in her family. Hope’s eyes darken. The memory of her family makes her ache somewhat, a pleasant pain that reminds her of the good times she shared with her parents before they died. 

“Do you normally talk to your mom about me?” Hope asks, mostly curious, if a little bit teasing. She watches with satisfaction as the other girl flushes. 

“Anyways,” Josie deflects. Hope only smirks once again. “I was in the middle of apologizing. Where was I?” 

“Oh, right. I’m sorry, for making all our friends ignore you, and I’m sorry, for acting like a jealous girlfriend.” Josie absentmindedly strokes Hope’s hand with her thumb, an indicator of her nervousness. “I don’t know what came over me when I saw you and Alyssa together. But, I know I didn’t like it, at all—that she thinks you’re _single_ or something.”

Hope opens her mouth to argue or comfort Josie, she doesn’t know which one she wants to do yet, but Josie talks over her. 

“All I know,” she breathes deeply. “Is that I don’t want to feel that way again. I want everyone to know that I’m yours. Okay?” 

Hope’s eyes flash gold with a sudden stroke of possessiveness, and she tugs the other girl on top of her before she can think twice about it. Josie yelps in surprise but doesn’t try to struggle away. “Okay.” 

Before the siphoner can respond, Hope crashes her lips against hers and pulls her into a heated kiss. Josie responds just as enthusiastically, wrapping her arms around the back of Hope’s neck and smiling into her mouth. 

—

In the morning, the two girls decide to just be themselves. 

Hope and Josie hold hands during breakfast, and people might assume that the action is friendly if not for the moment when the siphoner kisses the tribrid on the cheek as she reaches for an orange. 

Several gasps shoot across the dining hall, and small murmurs and whispers begin to break out around them. Lizzie can’t take it after a long moment of restless chatter and noise, and she stands up quickly, almost bringing the entire table off the floor with her. 

“Yes, my dear sister and Hope Mikaelson are soulmates. Get _over_ it!” 

That only exacerbates the problem at hand, and the room only gets louder. Many cannot believe that the Great Evil’s daughter Hope Mikaelson has a soulmate, and many cannot believe that sweet, sweet Josie Saltzman is condemned to bond eternally with such a person. 

Alyssa Chang faints dead away. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hmm, i think this is a good place to end this story, but i have a couple of other chapters planned out. what do you guys think?


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “We all have forests on our minds. Forests unexplored, unending. Each one of us gets lost in the forest, every night, alone.” 
> 
> —Ursula K. Le Guin

_ She’s in the woods.  _

_ Not just any woods, but the woods surrounding the Salvatore School, and she knows it because she’s been here a hundred—no, a  _ thousand _ —times before.  _

_ Always as a wolf, chasing nothing but air as her paws pound into the ground beneath her, with only the moon to guide her.  _

_But Hope’s not a wolf, now. She’s painfully human, and she’s not good enough in this form. Not nearly quick enough. Not quick enough to hide from the thing chasing her_. 

_ She doesn’t know what it is, just that it’s faster than her and she doesn’t know how much longer she can run for. How much longer she can go on for.  _

_ She forces herself to keep running, but it’s no use. It doesn’t matter how long she’s been at this, or how fast she is, because she knows she hasn’t moved a single inch.  _

_ The trees around her are the same, have always been the same, and Hope has the breathless thought that she’s been running in circles. She doesn’t even know if she’s still being chased.  _

_ Panting, gasping, begging for air, she turns around to catch a glimpse of the thing behind her, but— _

_ There is nothing there.  _

_ Nothing but trees and grass and the dark blue of the night sky. Hope stops short and furrows her eyebrows in surprise, leaning over to catch her breath. Her relief is short-lived.  _

_ She turns back around and immediately scrambles backwards, heart shooting up into her throat at the sight of the Timor Tunores in front of her—ghastly and pale and looking every inch the monster it is.  _

_ “You cannot run from me, Tribrid,” it bellows, a nasty smirk on its face that Hope can barely see through the bits of skin and bone hanging off of its face.  _

_ Hope tries to summon her magic, tries to shift into her wolf, but both have seemed to abandon her. Only  _ she _ is here, and she is not fucking good enough.  _ Never _ good enough.  _

_ The Timor Tunores leaps forward with its hand outstretched in front of it, wrapping its claws around Hope’s neck, and suddenly she can’t breathe. Can’t feel anything but the sharp edges of inhumane nails, can’t smell anything but the monster’s vile breath, can’t do anything but scream and choke and die. _

_ Die. _

Hope startles awake with a silent gasp, the collar of her shirt soaked in sweat. She immediately sits up and moves away so that her back touches the headboard of her bed, eyes bright with blazing gold, darting around the walls of her room in panic. 

It’s pitch black. 

It must be after midnight, at least. What time is it? 

A hand—is it her own?—pulls at her collar and curls fingers and nails around the flesh of her throat. It moves and scratches the skin beneath it, as if checking for injury. When Hope finds nothing, she takes a deep breath through her mouth that sounds too much like a sigh and a whimper all at once.

Damn it. 

She runs her hand through the roots of her slick, sweat-laden hair before lowering it back down and wiping it on her pajamas. Blinking fast and then slow, she forces her pounding heart to calm down. 

This time, when she takes a deep breath, she inhales through her nose instead of her mouth. She instantly freezes at the scent that floods her senses—something soft and sweet but undeniably intoxicating. 

Hope’s eyes flutter shut as she remembers that her soulmate is sound asleep right next to her. When she opens them, it’s only to look at Josie with something akin to love and adoration. 

They’ve been dating for a little over three months now, but the novelty hasn’t quite worn off yet. Hope still feels the same as she always has, and watching the siphoner now, she knows she always will. 

Josie is breathing quietly, lips parted as she snuggles into a pillow with her knees to her chest. Hope smiles and shakes her head at herself, readjusting the blanket she had kicked off during her nightmare so that it rests above Josie’s waist. 

The girl hums at the back of her throat in response, shrinking further into herself with that same calm, serene expression on her face. Hope stays still and watches her for another second or two before climbing out of her bed and walking over silently to her bathroom. 

She chooses not to turn on the lights so she doesn’t wake up Josie, instead washing her hands and face in the dark before drying them off in the dark, too. 

She grabs her laptop on the way back to her bed, making sure that the screen brightness is on the lowest possible setting and that the volume is completely off. 

It’s time like these, after waking up from a nightmare, that she knows she won’t be able to go back to sleep. She hasn’t had a dream quite like this one for a while, and the more she tries to think about what had happened in the dream, the more it evades her. 

But, if she can remember one thing, it’s the image of the Timor Tunores right in front of her, grabbing her around the neck like she’s nothing but a rag doll and squeezing the life out of her no matter how hard she tries to escape. 

Sighing, Hope opens her Hulu subscription and plays a random episode of Chopped. After the twentieth time she had forced Josie to rewatch Cutthroat Kitchen with her, the siphoner had made her try something new instead, which brings her to what she’s doing now. 

She peeks at Josie for just a second before turning the subtitles of the episode on and leaning back against the headboard. A little more than halfway through the episode, her soulmate starts to stir awake next to her. 

Hope ignores it at first and chooses to just turn the screen away from Josie, but it’s too late. The brunette slowly begins to move around and even lifts her head up off of her pillow. Eyes still closed, she balls a fist into the tribrid’s shirt and tries to tug her closer. 

Hope doesn’t move. She only places her hand on top of Josie’s knuckles and peeks back at the screen, rolling her eyes as she watches some idiot attempt to make ice cream in the final round with five minutes left to go.

“Hopey...” Josie mumbles sleepily, trailing off as she drops her head back down with exhaustion. Her next words go unheard, muffled by the pillow. 

“Go back to sleep, babe,” Hope says without really paying attention, glancing to the other girl before pressing the resume button on her laptop. 

God. Not only is the contestant making ice cream, but he’s also making pineapple and coconut flavored ice cream. Disgusting. 

“Why are...?” Damn it. Josie seems to actually be waking up now. Her fist in Hope’s shirt tightens and this time, when she lifts her head up, her eyes are blinking open. 

She yawns and stretches, before repeating herself, “Why are you awake?” 

Hope sighs and turns her laptop off, placing it on her bedside table. Maybe it’s better that she doesn’t see how the episode ends. 

“I’m not.” 

Josie pouts. “You are.” 

“No. You’re dreaming.” 

“I’m not.” 

She lets go of Hope’s shirt and pokes her in the stomach with a single finger. “What’s wrong?” 

When Hope doesn’t immediately say anything, the brunette moves up the bed and snuggles into Hope’s side where her back is leaning against the headboard. She even buries her face into the crook of the tribrid’s neck, lips mouthing at the skin she finds there. 

Hope pats the top of her head and lightly runs her fingers through her hair, shutting her eyes at the feeling of Josie so close. At the feeling of her lips so close, leaving kisses that burn hot like brands. She never wants to leave. 

“You just woke up and you’re already trying to get in my pants,” she chuckles out, losing herself in the blacks of her eyelids. Josie always feels so good. Always _smells_ so good. 

The siphoner scoffs and leans back. Hope snaps her eyes wide open at the sudden loss of her soulmate. She blinks hazily, her brain not quite caught up. 

“That’s not what I’m doing,” Josie says, matter-of-fact. “I’m comforting you.” 

Hope arches an eyebrow.

“I read in the library that werewolves can comfort each other during the full moon by initiating intimate skin-to-skin contact,” she explains thoughtfully, as if reciting something word for word. “Or rather, fur-to-fur.” 

Hope raises her other eyebrow. 

She doesn’t mention that Josie isn’t a werewolf. And that she doesn’t need a full moon to shift. 

“It also pleases the alpha if a wolf submits by licking under their muzzle. I think the book said it’s a way to show affection or something like that,” the siphoner adds, a strange up-lilt to her voice. She lowers herself back down to the underside of Hope’s jaw and playfully drags the flat of her tongue up it in a long line. 

Hope squirms and swats her away with a gentle push. She narrows her eyes in the dark and rubs at the damp flesh of her throat. 

“The alpha?” she asks, swallowing hard. Her voice sounds a little too rough and husky, but it doesn’t look like Josie minds. 

The other girl only giggles. 

Hope scowls. “Is that why you’ve been so focused on my neck lately?” 

Josie yawns and leans away. “Well, I wouldn’t say _focused_...” she trails off, interrupted by another yawn. The lids of her eyes droop for a second before they find Hope’s. 

“You tried to bite me last week,” the tribrid deadpans. Even in the stark dark of the room, Hope can see a blush working its way up Josie’s cheeks. 

“That was an accident,” she says, hiding her face in the crook of Hope’s shoulder. Her words come out a murmur against the skin of Hope’s neck. “Just—just let me work.”

“Oh.” Hope takes a deep breath as Josie practically seats herself on her lap. “Okay.” 

Within seconds, she loses herself in the feeling of their bodies pressed so closely, chests brushing against each other’s with every single breath. It almost feels like they’re hugging. If not for Josie basically making love to her neck. After a minute, she relaxes into the featherlight touches and lets her head fall back against the headboard. 

“So...” Josie presses her lips softly to Hope’s pulse point. She puffs a breath against the hot skin, nose finding purchase just underneath Hope’s ear. She inhales deeply. “Why are you awake?” 

“Bad dream,” Hope tells Josie, not thinking, distracted by the siphoner’s proximity. Josie places one more secret kiss to her pulse point, before backing away and fixing Hope with a look that’s hard to interpret in the dark. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asks, words a low murmur. She still sounds half-asleep, and Hope has the guilty thought that she definitely doesn’t want to keep her awake. 

Heart in her throat, she bites the inside of her cheek and shakes her head. 

“Not really.” 

The hand that was twisted into Hope’s shirt earlier comes back. It pulls and tugs, before slipping underneath the fabric and gently brushing along the skin of Hope’s stomach, drawing little circles for comfort. 

“Are you sure?” 

The tribrid thinks about her answer a little longer this time, eyes darkening at the vision of the Timor Tunores towering over her. She hasn’t thought about that particular monster in a while, but now she can’t seem to stop. 

She remembers how it had manipulated her into thinking it was Josie, how it had tricked her and made her feel the worst fear of her life. She remembers her conversation with it in the werewolf transformation cell, where the piece of shit had basically called _her_ a monster all the same. 

“Hope?” 

The tribrid blinks out of her thoughts and sends Josie a reassuring smile. No. She won’t talk about it. She won’t ever mention it to Josie. The other girl will never have to know, and Hope will never let her be aware of or come into contact with any kind of monsters at all. 

Not if she can help it. 

—

Well. 

As much as Hope tries not to let Josie come into contact with any monsters, it inevitably happens. The next monster attacks the school, and despite all her intentions, Hope really can’t prevent Josie from joining in on the fight until after the fact. 

As it turns out, the monsters hadn’t been coming after the school because of Landon—though him and Rafael had long since left to go soul searching or whatever—but because of a knife artifact that the Salvatore Boarding School kept stowed away in the library. 

That is to say, the monsters had only started coming after Landon touched it and activated the artifact’s magic, but Alaric stresses that Hope doesn’t blame him. She doesn’t know how she _can’t_. 

After he had told her that Landon was not just a phoenix, but actually related to Malivore—the big, bad monster they had been indirectly fighting since this all started—Hope has sort of been expecting the boy to turn on them and betray them somehow. Who wouldn’t for family? 

Alaric doesn’t seem to understand that. He trusts Landon enough to let him go and come back with his brother—Clay? Cuckoo? Clarke?—all on his own. That leaves Hope and Alaric fending off the monsters on their own. 

They still don’t know why the knife is so important or why these Malivore monsters seem to want it so bad, but they know well enough that, whatever the knife _actually_ does, they can’t let it fall into the wrong hands. They can’t let the monsters have it. 

That’s why, when the next monster comes, Alaric and Hope are at the front of the line, the knife itself sealed carefully away in one of the headmaster’s hiding spots. 

“Let me guess,” Hope mutters sarcastically, as she stands next to Alaric and Jed’s pack at the front doors of the school. The monster stands opposite to her. “You’re here for the knife.” 

Across from them, a Faerie Hound rises on its hind legs and tilts its head curiously to the side, unable to understand the words. The hound has an immaculate, white coat of fur and red-tipped ears. It’s skinny enough that its ribs protrude from its sides, but that’s not to say it doesn’t look strong or powerful. 

It’s easily twice as large as Hope in wolf form, and there’s something pretty and innocent about it. Hope wouldn’t necessarily call it a _monster, _if not for its beady, red eyes. When the hound opens its mouth with a snarl, the action reveals eight sharp canines that look to be double the length of Hope’s fingers. 

Great. 

“Can that thing even hold it?” Jed asks, face contorted into disgust or maybe fear, Hope can’t tell. Alaric had invited the boy along with his pack when he had realized that the monster was basically the uglier version of a dog. 

Back to the question, Hope cocks her head to the side as she thinks about it. It’s a good question. If the hound is even able to get the knife, how will it take it back to Malivore? Maybe Malivore hadn’t thought that one through. 

“Not to interrupt,” Alaric puts in, loading his ridiculously large crossbow. “But maybe fight first, ask questions later?” 

He ends up shooting the first arrow. 

Hope readies herself in a defensive stance as she signals for Jed and the rest of his pack to do the same, but the arrow doesn’t quite hit its mark. Well, technically, it _does_. 

It hits the hound right in the chest, but the animal doesn’t seem to be even mildly alarmed by the fact. Instead, it kicks back onto its hind legs and leaps forward, arrow still embedded into its chest.   


  
  
Correction: it leaps forward, vision tunneled, right at Alaric. 

Hope shoots forward at the same time, clothes ripping into shreds of fabric as her skin grows to fur and every bone in her body breaks and reforms. 

She clashes into the monster, white wolf against white hound, a blur of fur and teeth. Sharp canines latch onto her shoulder just as she drives a desperate paw in the Faerie Hound’s face, landing a punch right to its eye. 

Its glowing eyes dim for just a second as it releases its hold on Hope and scrambles backwards, but the tribrid doesn’t give it a second to breathe. 

Instead, she jumps forward once more, jaw snapping with a snarl. She nips at one of its ears with her incisors, painting the ground with red crimson. The two continue to wrestle for a long couple of minutes, until both coats of matted fur are streaked with blood and dirt. 

It comes to a point where Hope can barely tell where she begins and the monster ends. Once, she even bites her own tail before realizing it belongs to _her_ and not the Faerie Hound. She can’t really be blamed for that, though. She doesn’t have a whole lot of experience fighting as a wolf, but it’s not like she can just turn back now. 

But her reflexes are still as sharp as ever, and she manages to deliver a blow that sends the monster flying back several feet. While it’s still knocked down, she takes the chance to recuperate and force air into her aching lungs. 

All the same, Jed’s pack takes the chance to come into the mix with their fists raised and shirts off like brutes. They all land some pretty solid hits, but if anything, they do a lot less damage than is done to _them_. 

Since it’s not a full moon and they’re all left to brawl in their weaker human forms, many of them get injured and are left bleeding on the ground, forced to limp away from the fight with their tails tucked between their legs. 

Somehow, it seems that the hound is getting impossibly stronger the more it gets hurt. Hope knows that she needs to keep it as far away from Alaric and the school as possible, but that’s much easier said than done. 

Every time she tries to back it up, it only lunges at her and corners her instead. She angles her body in a poor attempt to edge it towards the woods, but the hound is a lot smarter than it looks and doesn’t let that happen, simply leaping over her and reversing their positions. 

This is rather unfortunate, since the other animal pounces in the single second it takes for her to turn back around and face it, allowing the hound to clamp its jaws onto her throat and bite down with full-force. 

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck—

Hope shakes out of the grip before the hound can rip her throat out, but the force of it sends her flying back at least ten feet. She howls in agony, paws scrambling for purchase on the ground.

A pathetic, choked whimper escapes her mouth before she can stop it, followed by more. She can’t control it, can’t control the blood dripping down from her neck to the ground. The tribrid attempts to lift herself up off the ground on her bloodied paws. It doesn’t quite work, because the pain proves too much to handle. 

Hope pants and keeps her chin to the dirt, trying to protect the jagged wound bleeding from her neck. Her opponent doesn’t appear to care much for mercy or pity, because it follows after her like a leech on blood, hot on her heels. 

Hope shuts her eyes in dread as her hearing zeros in on the sound of the hound’s paws pounding into the dirt, but suddenly, the sound disappears. She sniffs and smells smoke. 

What the hell? 

She blinks a single eye open to watch as the hound yips and yaps in pain, trying to bat away the orange flames licking at its fur. 

Hope blinks again. Is it...on _fire_? 

After a minute or two, the hound finally manages to extinguish the flames, leaving its entire body covered by soot and ash. The stench of burning flesh stings in Hope’s nostrils and she wrinkles her nose. She notices that half of the animal’s white fur is gone, revealing pink skin underneath. 

Damn. 

When the hound realizes what’s happened, it turns its head from left to right in search of whoever had set it on fire. A long second of silence drags on, where Hope can only hear the sounds of Jed’s pack groaning in pain, can only hear the beat of her heart resounding loudly in her ears. 

Then, the second passes, and the hound goes rigid. Its beady eyes gleam red, much brighter than they ever had before. A snarl touches its lips, curling them back enough that Hope can see the thick stream of saliva dripping from its mouth. 

The tribrid slowly lifts her head up from the ground, curious as to what caught the animal’s attention. 

She instantly freezes. 

There, standing next to Jed, a siphoning hand on his bicep, is Josie Saltzman. She’s staring dead in the eyes of the monster, looking beyond livid, her jaw set dangerously.

The Faerie Hound looks beyond livid, too. The only warning Hope gets before the animal kicks off on its hind legs with Josie in its sights is a low growl and then—

The tribrid pushes herself off the ground, yellow eyes clenched in pain, but she doesn’t care, can’t care, won’t _ever_ care when her soulmate is in danger. When her only thought, only instinct, is screaming to _protect_.

Everything seems to slow down. Josie leans back with a squeak of surprise, holding her palms out in front of her as she turns her head away. Hope’s surroundings blur around her as she picks up speed, until she is not ten feet away from the monster. 

Hope jumps as far as her back legs will take her. She crashes into the hound’s side just before it can reach Josie. The two of them slam into a statue outside the school building, knocking it over and splitting off in separate directions at the collision. 

It doesn’t stop there.

Feral and growling, Hope doesn’t hesitate before lunging again. Her muzzle finds the monster’s throat and she snaps her canines down in a vice-grip, hot blood pouring out within seconds and scorching the tip of her tongue. She lets out a deep, satisfied roar at the taste, which is barely muffled by the fur of the Faerie Hound around her teeth. 

She shakes it left and right before throwing the hound a couple of feet away. When it looks like the animal might try to fight back or get up, she snaps her teeth together in warning. The hound gets the message this time. It collapses back onto the group in a limp heap of blood and fur. 

Instincts high and too overwhelming to ignore, Hope whips around at Josie, a growl rumbling low in her chest. She stalks up to the siphoner with dark, golden eyes and a wicked snarl to match. 

“Hope?” Josie whimpers out, like she’s placating a rabid animal. She backs up a foot or two. Hope doesn’t know if it’s because she’s afraid or simply surprised. She doesn’t care. She’s too angry. Angry. 

Still growling, she leaps forward with the intent to crash into the other girl. She manages to shift back into her human form just before she slams into Josie, uncaring that she’s stark naked and nearly beaten to a bloody pulp. 

As soon as she shifts back, the school’s pack and Alaric avert their eyes to literally anywhere but Hope. Someone hands her a jacket. Hope thinks it might be Jed or Alaric, but she’s too focused on Josie to see anything else. 

Well, at least the jacket is big enough that it falls to her thighs. Big enough to protect the little modesty she has left. 

“What the hell are you doing out here?” Hope hisses, voice gruff and low. Josie shivers and lets herself be trapped, eyes purposely not falling below Hope’s head, but not quite meeting Hope’s own. “Get inside. Now.” 

“But I—“ the brunette tries to argue, a weird flush to her cheeks. Hope cuts her off.

“Now!” she snarls. Her neck aches like lava in her veins but she can barely feel it right now. It must be the adrenaline. 

She watches as Josie pulls herself away, looking taken aback and betrayed. Embarrassed, too, like a scolded child. Whatever she had been about to say dies on the tip of her tongue. Instead, she closes her mouth and takes another step back. 

Hope swallows hard, having immediately regretted her reaction the second Josie’s face had fell. All color disappears from her own.   


“Josie—“ 

The siphoner’s throat bobs. She shakes her head, expression sad and disappointed. 

“I just wanted to help,” she says quietly. She sends the tribrid one last look before turning around and walking away. Hope stares after her, heart gnawing in her chest. 

Every step farther apart hurts worse than it ever has before. 

“Hey, is that...?” Alaric points to somewhere random in the distance a couple of minutes later, while they’re chaining up the Faerie Hound. Hope looks up, making out three figures near the large gates of the school. 

She squints her eyes to see better, narrowing them even further when she recognizes Landon, Rafael, and...

Another man Hope has never met before. 

Yay. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> idk, do you guys want fluff or angst for the next couple of chapters?


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Where are the people?” resumed the little prince at last. “It’s a little lonely in the desert...”
> 
> “It is lonely when you’re among people, too,” said the snake. 
> 
> —Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Hope stands in Alaric’s office, leaning against a wall with a bored expression on her face as she waits for him to come back. 

Well, she’s not exactly bored, just trying to make herself look like it. Her eyes betray her, glancing off to Josie every few seconds and lingering for far longer. 

The siphoner is sitting in one of the chairs in front of Alaric’s desk. Her back is to Hope, and the tribrid can’t help but feel like that’s on purpose. 

Josie’s sister is sitting right next to her, but the two aren’t talking much. Alaric had instructed the three of them to wait here while he showed Landon, Rafael, and _Clarke_—Hope finally remembered his name—to their room. He had claimed it was only so that they could settle down after their long trip and relax for at least a couple of moments. 

Hope, on the other hand, hasn’t been in this fucking office for more than five minutes, but it somehow feels like she’s hours away. 

Josie and Lizzie had already been inside when Hope knocked, but neither had bothered to open the locked door for her, so she had been forced to use a spell to do it on her own. 

Before then, Alaric had made her take care of the Faerie Hound. She had carried it to one of the cells in the werewolf transformation chamber all by herself, while Alaric had done...

Well, he had done God knows what. Played around with boys half his age? Acted as a tour guide? Hope has no fucking clue. If she thinks about it, she really doesn’t care all that much, too consumed with thoughts of her soulmate to even think about the girl’s father. 

She doesn’t know where she went wrong. 

Josie and her had been fine last night. They had slept together in Hope’s room like they usually do, had breakfast together like they usually do, Josie had let Hope walk her to her classes like she usually does, they had even eaten lunch together like they usually do. She just— 

She doesn’t _know_ where she went wrong. 

But, if she’s being honest, she does. The tribrid had humiliated Josie in front of her fellow classmates, had treated her like an inconvenience—like a burden—and now she’s suffering the consequences for it. 

Josie has every right to ignore her now. To shut her out. That doesn’t mean Hope _wants_ her to. Damn it. She just wants to turn time back to last night, where she had held Josie and had been held in return. Where Hope knew for certain that Josie loved her back and was okay with being in a relationship with her.

Now. Well. She has no idea, now. 

Sighing, Hope kicks off the wall and comes up behind Josie, keeping her movements slow enough to give the other girl time to move away. 

A beat passes. Hope pauses all the same. She watches as Josie goes rigid, the muscles of her shoulders tensing as she keeps her chin held high and back straight. Another beat passes. 

Hope’s heart pounds thickly in her chest, dreading the moment Josie gets up and leaves. When she doesn’t, the tribrid leans down and places her hand atop Josie’s own where it lies on the arm of the chair, just to get her attention. 

The delicate nerves jump underneath her touch, and she revels in the warmth of blood just beneath the skin. Josie’s skin is always so soft, and there will never be a day Hope doesn’t appreciate it. 

Slightly overwhelmed by her sudden feelings, she allows her eyes to flutter shut for just a second before she controls herself. Blinking them open, she leans further down to Josie’s ear, hot breath ghosting over the shell. 

“Do you want to talk?” she asks quietly, squeezing Josie’s fingers underneath her own. She can almost hear the brunette stop breathing, can almost hear the breath get caught in her throat. “We can go outside or...” 

“I’m okay,” Josie cuts her off, words coming rushed and fast as if she might lose her nerve if she doesn’t get them out now. 

Hope swallows hard and blinks. The rejection stings, but not as much as it does a second later when Josie shoves her hand off of hers and turns away from her. 

“Okay.” The tribrid sucks in a harsh excuse of a breath, impossibly hurt. Her hand drops to her side, and she pretends not to feel affected by it at all. Yet, a deep part of her is desperate for any kind of connection. Josie holding her hand would go a long way towards that, she thinks. 

She reaches out again, but her hand finds no purchase in the air and hangs limply. Like the first time, she tightens it into a fist before lowering it back to her side. She clenches her eyes shut once more, searching in the dark for the courage to ask, “Do you think we could, maybe, uh...hold hands, maybe?” 

Josie glances at her for just a second, but she keeps her eyes looking straight as she shakes her head. “You have blood on your knuckles,” she mumbles, wringing her own, clean hands in her lap. 

“Oh.” Hope gives a single, jerky nod of her head and steps back, face red with a dark blush. “Right.” 

She glances down to the back of her hand, which actually does have little bits of dried blood cracked into the skin. Damn. She thought she had washed all the blood off of her earlier when she was changing into new clothes and cleaning the bite on her neck. Thankfully, it had healed almost immediately after she had shifted back into her human form. What’s left now is only a tiny sliver of a scar. 

Just as she turns to go back to the bathroom to wash her hands, the double doors to the office swing open. Alaric appears behind the entrance, with Landon, Rafael, and Clarke trailing behind him. 

They don’t waste time making introductions. 

“I’m Clarke.” The man throws his hand out towards Hope not a minute later, a slimy smirk on his lips. She stares at his hand with a vaguely unimpressed look. “Ryan Clarke.” 

A tense, awkward moment passes and then drags on. 

Hope decides not to shake his hand, simply because he hadn’t bothered to offer it to Josie and Lizzie. Why is she any different? 

Clarke seems a little offended that she doesn’t, but he accepts it and takes his hand back. His eyes dart to Landon’s, then, as if silently asking him to explain Hope’s rudeness. 

Landon pinks. “She’s just...like that,” he says, shrugging with a small lift of his shoulders. Hope glares at him. What the hell does _that_ mean? 

Clarke’s smirk grows, almost good-naturedly. “I totally understand—“

“Cut the bullshit,” Hope growls out, patience wearing thin. All she can see standing in front of her is a stranger and two possible traitors by his side. She can’t trust any of them. Silly of her. To even think Landon had been different. “Tell us what we really want to hear.” 

At the outburst, Josie whirls around in her chair to pin Hope with a look of disbelief. The tribrid meets her gaze with parted lips, eyes softening the second they land on Josie’s. She feels the fire in her go out all at once. Feels the anger leave in her seconds. 

“Fine.” Clarke’s smirk snaps down with annoyance. Hope tears her eyes away from Josie to look at him, but Josie’s own remain, staring into her like a burn. “What do you know about Malivore?”

Hope is not the one that answers. 

“Just that every monster that comes here mentions his name,” Alaric says, pulling out a book from a shelf next to his desk. “—That he wants _this_.” 

In the empty spot where the book used to be, he slots his hand inside and curls his fingers around the Malivore knife, holding it up for everyone to see. Clarke’s eyes glint darkly at the sight of the artifact. 

“And that you’re related to him,” Hope adds. She crosses her arms almost defensively. “Whatever that means.” 

Clarke seems very satisfied with himself. He clasps his hands together with a grin. 

“You would be right. He is our father,” he says, gesturing off to Landon and then back to himself. “But he wasn’t always a monster. He used to be a protector.” 

Hope rolls her eyes and lets out a scoff, but her scathing remark dies in her throat as warm fingers suddenly brush over the skin of her wrist and interlock with her own. She glances down to find Josie staring up at her with big eyes and pouty lips, her body twisted around at an odd angle in her chair in order to hold Hope’s hand. 

The tribrid stutters out a whimper and closes her mouth, all the fury and bitterness inside of her that she had been planning to take out on Clarke gone in an instant. 

She’s pretty sure that Josie is only holding her hand so she doesn’t blow up, but damn it, it’s working. Even if it hurts to know Josie doesn’t mean it.

“Around a millennia ago,” Clarke explains, seeming not to notice Hope’s inner turmoil. “There was a small village that was constantly terrorized and plagued by monsters. Monsters of which the supernatural beings in the town knew they couldn’t face alone. Coming together to form a triad, a vampire, a witch, and a werewolf combined their blood to help create a golem of mud in the hopes that it would consume these monsters and help protect them. This golem became my father. Malivore. The triad made it so that he couldn’t be destroyed by anyone but the blood of those that created him, nor could he bring any harm to these same species.” 

He starts to walk around the room as he talks. 

“Every time Malivore consumed a monster, he would take that monster’s DNA unto himself. Soon, he became sentient—truly alive and conscious, not just some lifeless, mud golem. But it also made him smart,” Clarke continues. “When he realized his makers intended to destroy him once the village was considered safe again, he made a deal with a group of humans and betrayed the people who gave him life in the first place.” 

_ What a surprise.  _

Hope eyes Landon, trying to see what he thinks of all this, but he doesn’t look very shocked or disappointed. Just angry, as if he’s been told this story a million times and still can’t quite believe it. 

“These humans allowed my father to roam the Earth as he pleased, to consume as he wanted,” Clarke tells them, “but he didn’t stop there. He wasn’t content with just being free. He wanted children, and he tried to use the DNA of the monsters he consumed to create them. But his creations had weaknesses and flaws, and couldn’t reproduce to continue his legacy. I was one of them.” 

Hope wrinkles her nose in distaste but doesn’t say anything offensive or insulting like she wants to. Lizzie, on the other hand, interrupts the story with a noise of disgust and a delicate shiver. 

Every head in the room turns to her at the sound. Hope feels Josie’s fingers give a small twitch. She resists the urge to squeeze back, resists the urge to bring their clasped hands to her lips and kiss the back of Josie’s knuckles. Now is not the time, Hope reminds herself. She sighs, settling for a small twitch of her own. Josie doesn’t give anything back. 

“—Let me just say what the rest of us are thinking.” Oh. Lizzie is talking. Hope hadn’t realized. “You’re not on our side at all. You just want payback for Daddy Dearest selfishly passing on his piss-poor mud genes to you and your birdbrained brother.” 

Landon pouts. Hope thinks it just proves Lizzie’s point. Clarke doesn’t look so sure. 

“Our father was not _selfish_ to create us,” he says, glancing at Landon and looking determined to convince him. His voice suddenly grows quiet, eyes darting down. “He was not a monster. Not then. He was...” 

“Just lonely.” 

Hope swallows thickly, feeling a lump of emotion in her throat that certainly hadn’t been there before. Unbidden, her eyes snap to Josie, who isn’t looking at her back. She frowns and looks away. 

“Still,” Clarke continues. “I was never perfect enough for my father. Never good enough. He resented me, and I him.” 

He smiles. 

“Naturally, I betrayed him.” Hope raises her eyebrows. Well. “I recruited a coven of witches to help me destroy him once and for all, to trap him in and bound him to his natural state. To essentially strip him of his power. They agreed to help me without much convincing, as they felt threatened by him as much as I did. We placed him somewhere where he could no longer roam the earth as he pleased—where he would be confined to live the rest of his days as a black pit of slime.” 

“How?” Hope speaks up. 

“A binding spell,” Clarke answers simply. “The witches took an artifact that belonged to each of the original makers that helped create my father. One of which you have in your possession.” 

Alaric narrows his eyes. “The knife?” 

“Precisely.” Clarke smirks. “These artificacts act as locks to keep him inside the pit, while also allowing him to hold onto what makes him, _him_. Meaning, he can still consume any monsters that fall into the pit. The witches that helped me quite liked this idea, and together we formed Triad Industries, a business to keep the supernatural at bay. I’m proud to say that we used to keep the world safe, but not anymore.” 

Alaric and Hope exchange a look. Clarke doesn’t notice. 

“The power of it corrupted us,” he says. “The people I worked with soon started using the pit for purposes it was never intended for. We went from hiding the existence of monsters to punishing and putting away innocent humans—taking them from their friends, ripping apart families. My father took advantage. He used one of these humans’ DNA to bring Landon into the world, and then sent him off with a mission he wouldn’t realize until years later...” 

Landon swallows hard and loud. Hope doesn’t spare him a glance. 

“Triad Industries continued,” Clarke goes on, raking a hand through his greasy hair. It’s the first sign that he’s nervous. Distressed. “When I could no longer remain ignorant about what we were doing, I expressed my discomfort and begged my colleagues to listen. But they wouldn’t, and I was replaced as Head of Triad Industries.” 

“By who?” Alaric cuts in. 

Clarke’s eyes shift around the room. He doesn’t seem as though he wants to answer. 

“Veronica Greasley.” 

Shit. 

Greasley. 

MG’s mother? 

Hope glances at Josie—MG is her best friend, after all—but her soulmate’s face is expressionless. It makes Hope’s chest grow tight. Until now, she had always been able to read Josie’s emotions clear as day, heart right on her sleeve. Not anymore. She looks away, unable to bear the disappointing, blank mask Josie wears for her now. 

“MG’s mom. We know,” Landon adds. “That’s why we came back. We have to defeat my father once and for all. We have to convince her to help us. She’s protecting him.” 

“So?” Hope wonders out loud, unaware of the snark in her voice. Landon must have some clue if he’s being this dramatic. He must know something. “How do we defeat him?” 

Landon looks to the floor. The blush from earlier returns to his face, burning his ears. Dead silence feels the room for what feels like hours. 

“We have no idea,” Clarke says, at last, in all seriousness. He admits, “For all of our time spent searching, we haven’t been able to find a way.” 

Well, that’s just great. Hope rolls her eyes, ready to leave. Of course Landon and his brother are completely useless. They had been off for weeks, God knows where, and had accomplished absolutely nothing. Hope thinks that she can probably do more good by herself in five minutes. 

The tribrid is pulled out of her thoughts when she feels Josie tug her hand out of hers, looking over to see that the brunette is rising from her chair. Hope’s arm follows to reconnect their hands, but Josie seems to dodge her and she meets only air. 

Hope swears she can hear Lizzie snicker underneath her breath. Her heart thuds painfully in her chest at the rejection. 

“But you just told us how to?” Josie speaks up, very slowly, almost with reluctance. 

Everyone looks to the siphoner, eyebrows raised and heads tilted to the side. Clarke’s lips stretch into a curious smirk. Hope hates how interested he looks in Josie. Hope hates how Josie looks at him back. 

“You said that only the blood of the triad that created him could destroy him,” Josie explains to the man-child. “We could use that.” 

Hope’s frown deepens. She still doesn’t understand. The rest of the room doesn’t appear to either. 

“Well, Jo,” Lizzie deadpans, “I think it’s pretty clear that they’re all dead now.” 

Josie gives an exasperated huff, but she still looks excited by whatever is passing through her head. Hope watches the flecks of warm brown dance across her irises, entranced. 

“Maybe, but their bloodlines probably _aren’t_,” the siphoner says. “They could still have living relatives today, right?”

She turns to her sister. “Lizzie, it’s like what happened with Aunt Bonnie. She used her blood to seal that prison world Dad told us about, but any Bennett blood can be used to open it up again.” 

Lizzie’s eyes widen as she finally understands. She shares a secret smile with her sister, before Josie turns back to the whole group. Hope bites the inside of her cheek, feeling a little left out—and then feeling a little worse because she knows she _shouldn’t_. 

“Couldn’t there be a possibility that the spell on Malivore works the same?” Josie asks, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth. “Clarke said it himself. The triad used their blood together in a binding spell. If we traced down their descendants, maybe we could use their blood in a similar way. What if we have them recreate the spell their ancestors used to make Malivore, but this time to destroy him instead?” 

Alaric nods, slowly as his daughter’s words sets in and then quickly as he agrees. “That’s a good idea, Josie.” He pauses. “But how would we even find them?” 

Josie seems to think about it for a few seconds, but a few seconds is all she needs. When she talks, Hope is too busy looking at her lips to hear anything she says. It’s not her fault, it’s just that the siphoner looks so attractive all wound up and stuff. It’s _not_ her fault. 

“If Malivore was made by a werewolf, a witch, and a vampire, their DNA could still be left inside of him from their blood,” Josie tells her dad. “And with Landon and Clarke being his sons, couldn’t there technically still be traces of the triad’s blood in them?” 

“Any trace would be very small,” Clarke puts in, looking somehow both hesitant and amused, “but sure.” 

“Okay. So, let’s say there’s a chance.” Josie smiles hopefully. She looks at Alaric. “We run diagnostic DNA and blood tests on new students all the time, why don’t we just do it on them?” 

She nods her head off in the direction of Landon and Clarke, but she keeps her eyes on her dad, anxious for his response. He narrows his own eyes as he thinks about it, but he doesn’t get to reply before his other daughter suddenly speaks up. 

“I have a _better_ idea,” Lizzie declares out of nowhere, meeting her sister’s curious gaze. “I think you were onto something with that prison world stuff, Jo.” 

The blonde smiles something pleased and sugary sweet. Hope can’t tell if she’s being serious when she speaks again.   


“What if we just threw our good, old friend Malivore into a prison world and left his slimy ass to rot in there with our psycho uncle?” 

Hope scoffs, resisting the urge to roll her eyes for the third time in just as many minutes. 

“Don’t be silly, Lizzie,” Alaric says, before stopping himself short. The rest of the room drifts off into silence as everyone starts actually thinking about it. The silence drags on for at least a minute. 

“Wait.” Alaric scrunches up his face in thought. “Would that work?” 

Hope stares at him in disbelief. Stares at everyone in disbelief. Are they serious right now? 

Slowly, they all come to and shake themselves out of it. 

“No,” Josie mumbles, looking almost disappointed. What the hell? 

“Damn,” Rafael mutters underneath his breath. 

“Okay. Josie’s plan it is, then.” Alaric tucks the knife back into its hiding place, moving towards the exit. “I’ll go get Dorian and see if he can help run some tests.” 

He turns back to fix them all with with a weary, distrustful look. He narrows his eyes, gaze flitting to every single person before lingering on Clarke. “No one move.” 

Then, he’s gone. Later, Hope won’t be surprised to find out that he locked the door on his way out. 

She sighs, watching as everyone around her dissolves into their own conversations and versions of small talk. Lizzie and Josie turn towards each other as soon as their father leaves, lowering their voices and whispering heatedly. 

Hope tries to use her werewolf hearing to eavesdrop, but it’s as if she can’t hear anything at all. Their mouths are moving quickly, hands gesturing just as fast. The two sisters are clearly talking, but oddly enough, Hope can’t hear a single sound. It’s almost like they had placed some kind of spell on their conversation so no one could overhear.

What’s worse, maybe, is that they keep glancing off at Hope and sneaking looks in her direction, which makes the tribrid feel as if they’re talking about her. Josie blushes when Hope catches her eye, but she doesn’t say anything Hope can hear and only looks away, back to Lizzie. 

Curious and feeling insecure, Hope walks over to them. To Josie. The second the twins see her, they stop talking and whirl their heads at her. At the same time. Weird. 

From this angle, Hope can see that Josie had been siphoning magic from Alaric’s desk. The red glow of her hand fades back to normal as she looks up at Hope, expression innocent. 

Hope clears her throat awkwardly, and immediately curses herself for it. This is her soulmate. Why is she feeling like this? Like she’s on the outside looking in? 

Josie and her are soulmates. She should never feel like this. 

“Hey,” Hope says, going for casual, even if Lizzie and Josie’s expectant gazes unnerve her. She wrings her hands together, before taking a seat in one of Alaric’s empty chairs. She leans forward, almost desperate. “I just wanted to tell you that I liked what you said. That was a really good idea—“ 

Josie scoffs. “Don’t sound so surprised.” 

“Oh. No.” Hope pales. All the blood in her body leaves her all at once. She turns white as a sheet. “I’m not. I’m just really proud of you for—“

“Thanks,” Josie interrupts her again. Hope’s chest grows tight like it had earlier. She tries to shake the feeling off, but how can she? How can she, with Josie dismissing her so easily? With the fake-ass smile on the other girl’s lips? How can she feel anything but empty? 

“You can go now, Mikaelson,” Lizzie cuts in, making a shooting motion with her hands. Her smile is just as fake. “Hurry along.” 

“Wait. Josie.” Hope stays rooted to her spot, heart pounding in her ears. “I really need to apologize. You have to know how sorry I am—“ 

Hope is glad that Lizzie interrupts her this time, because she honestly had no idea where she was going with that. Sure, she could have apologized for embarrassing Josie, but certainly not for keeping her safe. What, is she supposed to say sorry for protecting her? 

“Listen, Kibbles,” the blonde says. Hope leans back, kind of offended. “My sister doesn’t care for any apology you can come up with, and neither do I. Now, make yourself useful and go sit somewhere else like a good dog.” 

Hope looks at Josie, trying to see if that’s what she wants, but her soulmate doesn’t say anything and keeps her eyes on the floor. 

Hope feels saliva pool in her throat like nausea. She can’t believe Josie actually let her sister tell her to sit like a good dog. 

The tribrid nods with a numb jerk of her head and stands up, electing to go sit on Alaric’s office couch by herself. Her limbs feel like rocks the entire, short way there, and she can’t tell if the pain ringing throughout her chest is from the soulmate bond or if it’s just her heart fucking breaking. 

Landon and Rafael try to make conversation with her, but she can only give them noncommittal answers and can’t say much back, if at all. Clarke stays in the corner, browsing Alaric’s bookshelves. It’s about ten minutes later when the headmaster comes back with Dorian. Both are carrying some equipment Hope can vaguely recognize. 

It doesn’t take long for Lizzie and Josie to help with the diagnostic tests and spells. Since Landon and Clarke are supernatural, neither of them need Hope to siphon from, which means that the tribrid doesn’t have a good enough reason to hold Josie’s hand. 

She remains sitting on Alaric’s couch, hurt and alone and useless. Her only consolation is Rafael, who is just as unneeded as she is right now. Once everything is said and done about an hour later, Josie and Lizzie set up a locator spell to see where the blood leads and where the triad’s descendants reside. 

Almost right away, seemingly a hundred red-crimson lines shoot out in different directions on the brothers’ maps. There are some lines thinner than others, and there are also some on Landon’s map that aren’t on Clarke’s. Dorian makes a comment about the fact that Malivore can’t consume vampires, werewolves, or witches, which he says makes it easier to narrow down the DNA of his creators. Luckily enough, there are three main thicker lines that Landon and Clarke both share, and even luckier still, all end in places in the United States.

** Providence, Rhode Island **

** Johnstown, Pennsylvania **

** Fort Valley, Georgia **

Everyone stares for a long few minutes, unable to take the information in, or maybe not wanting to. Hope knows exactly what it means. Alaric does, too. 

“That settles it,” he says. “We’ll go to Rhode Island first and hit Pennsylvania and Georgia on our way back.” 

Hope nods, already on her feet. She knows what they have to do. Alaric and her have done it a million times before, having traveled all across the country for new recruits for the school. “Hope, go get MG and tell him to pack a bag. Clarke and Landon,you’re coming with us. Rafael, you and my girls can stay here and hold down the fort, but Hope and I will take the knife to be safe. That should make the monsters come after us instead of the school.” 

Rafael pouts at the prospect of being left out but he manages to nod his head, too. 

“Right.” Alaric sweeps his gaze over the group. “We need to leave as soon as possible. Does the morning work for everyone?” 

“Hold on.” Josie stands up, crossing her arms. Her sister mirrors her expression and does the same. “Why does MG get to go and not us?”

She gestures between Lizzie and herself. 

“It’s not personal, sweetie,” her father says. Hope hums in agreement, which causes Josie to fix her with a scathing glare. Hope gulps messily and looks away. “He has a connection to the head of Triad, so we can use him as leverage if need be. His mother shouldn’t be that hard to talk to, I’ve corresponded with her on several occasions. Don’t worry, I won’t let your friend get hurt.” 

“Use him as leverage?” Lizzie bites out, not looking happy with the idea. Josie looks equally upset. “How will that not hurt him? Can you even hear yourself speak?” 

Alaric ignores her. “Hope, don’t tell MG everything just yet. All he needs to know is that we’re going on a fun, little road trip, okay?” 

“Got it,” Hope says. Both she and Alaric make for the door. 

“Wait.” Josie stops them before they can leave. When Hope turns around, she is immediately faced with the sight of her pissed off soulmate. The tribrid doesn’t know if she’s ever seen her so angry before. “Aren’t you forgetting something?” 

Hope and Alaric glance at each other, unsure. Then, the latter suddenly snaps his fingers as if remembering something. 

“Oh! Right. _Right_.” He smiles, fixing his eyes on Dorian. “Dorian, I need you to take over as the headmaster in my absence. Call me if things get out of hand.” 

Dorian grins back. 

“Of course.” 

“No. _No_.” Josie storms over to Hope and her dad. She somehow looks more pissed off than she did before. Her eyes are dark and swirling with indignation. “What about me?” 

The tribrid cocks her head to the side, confused. She and Alaric share a puzzled look. 

“What about _me_, Hope?” Josie repeats, voice thick with emotion. Her eyes have even started to water, and she blinks quickly, raising them to the ceiling as if searching for the strength to not cry. When she speaks, she sounds desperate. _Hurt_. “Rhode Island is eight hours away.” 

_Oh_, Hope thinks. She almost slaps herself on the forehead. How could she have forgotten about that? About their bond? How could she have let it slip her mind so easily? 

“Josie, I—“ Regret makes her stomach clench. Yet, a part of her doesn’t want Josie to come with them on the trip, even if it’ll cause her pain. Better she get sick rather than die because one of the triad’s descendants is homicidal or crazy. 

“What? Did you forget?” Josie cuts her off in a whisper, betrayed. Hope feels thoroughly scolded. She wishes that the siphoner wasn’t doing this in front of Landon and the rest of them, but maybe she deserves it. After what she did earlier, it’s only right that Josie humiliates her back. 

“How _could_ you?”

Hope flinches back with the force of it, even though Josie’s not exactly yelling at her. God. Why does she keep making everything worse for herself?

The tribrid feels her heart give a painful throb in her chest. Placing her hand over the skin does nothing to help. She moves closer to the other girl to comfort her, to comfort _herself_, but Josie isn’t having any of it. She slips right out of Hope’s reach. 

Is it the air or her lungs, when she suddenly can’t breathe? 

“And what’s _your_ excuse?” Josie whirls on Alaric, eyes still blazing. 

“I’m sorry, honey,” he tries, as if placating a rabid, cornered animal. “We weren’t thinking. Of course you can come—“ 

Before he can finish, Josie brushes passed the both of them and shoves open the door. Hope watches her disappear from the frame, and then watches Lizzie follow after her sister, but not before the blonde throws over her shoulder, “Oh. I’m coming, too.” 

Hope shuts her eyes closed, the memory of the look of disappointment Josie gave her before she left pinning her in place. 

She tries in vain to pretend that nothing had just happened. Tries to pretend that every bone in her body isn’t shaking. Tries to pretend that she hasn’t long since stopped breathing. 

—

When Hope is finally done talking with Alaric and then, later, MG, she heads straight to her dorm room, intent on catching a couple of hours of sleep before the day ahead. She doesn’t think Josie will want to stay the night after what had happened earlier, so she doesn’t bother sending a text or calling to ask. 

Not that she doesn’t want Josie to stay the night. She wants that so bad. After the day she’s had, all she wants is the other girl to be here with her and to comfort her. That clearly isn’t going to happen, though. 

With a deep sigh, Hope pushes the door to her room open and is greeted by a small breeze of cool air. She stops short at the sight that welcomes her. 

The lights are completely off. Instead, her room is illuminated by more than a dozen scented candles placed around it, on the floor and on top of desks and dressers and shelves, scattered near the very edges of the walls. 

On the left side of the room stands Josie Saltzman, in a simple spaghetti strap tank top with sinfully revealing short-shorts. Hope watches, mouth dry and lips chapped, as Josie bends down to a candle on the floor. Shestrikes the match in her hand, pressing the flame to the wick of the candle and waiting for it to burn.

“You’re early,” the siphoner murmurs in a low, distracted voice, still not facing Hope. 

Since Josie can’t see, Hope drops her eyes down the backs of Josie’s legs, blown pupils and dark irises tracing the flushed skin. Her mouth parts open, just enough for her tongue to swipe out and lick her suddenly very, very dry lips. She shivers. 

Only because it’s cold, she thinks. 

“I didn’t think you’d be here for another half an hour,” Josie continues, voice still so soft that Hope can barely hear it. She thinks that she can hear music, though. Something slow and sensual that has her blood thrumming underneath her skin. “You didn’t even give me a chance to change.” 

Hope shakes herself out of her lust-filled daze and closes the door behind her with her foot. She almost forgets to lock it. 

“Change?” Her eyes snap right to Josie’s the second the other girl turns around, a small pout on her full lips. Hope rakes her eyes inappropriately up and down Josie’s body, swearing inwardly the entire time for doing it. For being caught doing it. There’s no doubt about it. There’s _no way_ Josie hadn’t seen her staring like that. “Change into...?” 

Her soulmate doesn’t answer. She just smiles and shakes her head, like she’s amused or something. 

Hope swallows hard, suddenly too aware of the light sheen of pink-colored lip gloss on Josie’s lips. She wonders what flavor it is. She wonders how it would taste, how it would feel on her own lips. Sticky? Wet? 

_Fuck_. 

“What are you doing?” Hope asks. Her voice cracks. Damn it. 

Josie lifts her shoulders, placing the box of matches down. “Lighting candles.” 

Hope nods dumbly, trying not to look affected as the other girl comes closer. Close enough to breathe in. “Why?”

Josie twists a hand into the hem of Hope’s shirt and pulls her in towards the siphoner’s own body, so that their chests brush together for a second before Hope stumbles back. 

“_Hmm_,” Josie hums at the back of her throat. When she speaks, her voice comes out honeyed and suggestive. “I thought we could spend the night together.” 

Hope sucks in a deep, ragged breath. Josie must notice, _must_ notice her effect on her, because she smirks, just a little. Hope clears her throat, blushing. “I thought you were still angry with me for earlier.” 

The hand curled into Hope’s shirt travels to her arm, fingers walking up to her shoulder and teasing every inch of skin on their way. Josie finally stops at Hope’s collar, tugging at the fabric before her fingers dip underneath and find the sharp jut of Hope’s clavicle.

The tribrid sighs quietly. She doesn’t think she’s ever seen the other girl’s eyes quite this dark. 

“Oh, no. I am,” Josie says, shrugging.   


She presses down on the sensitive spot of Hope’s collarbone. She does it once, twice, three times, finally eliciting a low groan of desire from the tribrid.  


“But I know _exactly_ how you can make it up to me.” 


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “When the snow falls and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives.” 
> 
> —George R.R. Martin

Fuck. 

Hope bites hard on her tongue to stop the strangled, dying-animal noise from coming out of her mouth. 

To make matters worse, Josie keeps poking at that same spot on her collarbone, like she knows exactly what she’s doing. Hope has to shut her eyes and look away in order to find the strength to respond without stammering over her words. 

Without fucking moaning out loud like she’s in a porno. 

She manages. Just barely. 

“What did you have in mind?” she asks, voice deceptively casual. Josie grins. 

“Well, you could help me finish with the candles,” she tells Hope. 

They both know that there is no real reason for Josie to be lighting the candles up one by one with a match. They both know that Josie could siphon from a wall and do it with the tips of her fingers in seconds. Hope is kind of wondering why she hasn’t chosen to do that. 

“And...” 

Josie trails off, leaning in so that Hope’s nose falls into the crook of her neck, where Josie’s scent is the strongest. The tribrid inhales softly, running her nose up and down the skin until she finds purchase at her pulse point. 

A minute ago she had been cold. Now, Hope can only feel flushed and warm. She is still _fighting_ to keep her breathing even. 

“I could help you get out of these clothes,” Josie whispers, in a voice like fire. She tugs on Hope’s collar in emphasis, before leaning away enough so that their eyes can connect. Hope feels a jolt go down her spine at the intense contact. “You can even take off _mine_ if you want. Then, I thought we could move things to your bed. What do you think?” 

Towards the end, she leans back in so that her lips brush Hope’s ear, voice coming out like a purr. Hope inhales sharply through her nose and instantly regrets it, the scent of Josie so strong and unrelenting that her knees buckle forward. She tries to hold her breath, but it doesn’t quite work, and when her lungs start to ache for air she finds herself just taking in more of it. 

“I think that sounds amazing,” Hope says, turning her head over her shoulder in a poor attempt to hide the way her eyes are flashing gold. Josie beams. “But maybe we should just go to sleep.” 

The other girl’s face falls instantly at the words and she sighs—deep, long, and disappointed. 

“We need our rest for tomorrow,” the tribrid adds, but it’s more for _her_ than for Josie, more Hope trying to convince herself that this isn’t a good idea and that she needs to remain strong. 

Josie steps back, eyes glinting darkly. “Seriously?” she bites out. She looks more than a little angry. “What happened to the great, all-powerful tribrid’s stamina?” 

Hope barks out a laugh before she can stop herself. Josie doesn’t seem to find it so funny. She just crosses her arms over her chest in that pouty way of hers that should definitely not be making Hope sweat like it is. 

“Don’t be like that,” Hope tries, moving forward to reach out for Josie. The other girl just steps back again. Hope huffs out a sigh. “It’s better this way. We have a long day ahead of us. I don’t want you to feel as though this has to happen just because something big is coming or because we won’t be able to get alone for a couple of days.” 

Josie continues to pout and doesn’t say anything, but her arms are no longer folded defensively over her chest. Hope notices that the other girl’s eyes are still glaring into the floor, almost like she wants to tear the wooden boards apart and allow them to swallow her whole. 

“Come on,” Hope says, voice a single note below a whine. She steps forward and takes Josie in her arms, encircling her waist. What can she do to make this better? What can she do to get Josie to forgive her for everything she has done today? For everything she has messed up today? “I love you. You know that.” 

The truth is, Hope loves her too much. Hope loves her so, so much that she’s nervous that she might hurt Josie, that she might not be good enough or good at all, that Josie won’t like it. 

They’ve only been dating a couple of months. Surely they can wait, right? 

“Maybe,” the siphoner agrees, voice going small and timid. Her eyes drop from Hope’s, right back to the floor. “But you don’t _want_ me.” 

Hope furrows her eyebrows. What the hell? How could Josie even think that? Oh, God. Did she really mess up so badly that her soulmate thinks she doesn’t desire her? 

“Of course I want you,” she tells Josie, face screwed up in surprise. Even a little bit of anger at herself. “Now just isn’t the right time.” 

“Fine. You’re right.” Josie slips out of her arms, before Hope can pull her back and tighten her hold. The tribrid blinks and she’s gone. She vaguely hears the lock of her door clicking open. “I’m going back to my room. I’m so stupid. I can’t believe I thought...” 

Hope spins around and pins Josie to the door, the combined weights of their bodies shutting it closed. Josie instantly lets out a startled gasp that Hope swallows silent with her lips, and it should be embarrassing—it should be utterly humiliating how quickly Hope’s legs turn to jelly—but she can’t find it in herself to care as she attaches her hands to Josie’s hips and deepens the kiss. 

Josie doesn’t seem to care either because she winds her arms around the tribrid’s neck, even as Hope snakes her hand around Josie’s waist to lock the door. She can’t fucking believe she almost let Josie leave. _Again_. As if earlier hadn’t been torture enough. 

Hope slips her tongue against the line of Josie’s lips, asking, no, begging, for entrance. Josie opens her mouth without a second’s time and gives a soft whimper in response, fingertips brushing the hairs at the back of Hope’s nape. 

She arches into Hope, lips demanding and urgent, and the tribrid slams her back into the door without thinking, or maybe she’s thought about doing this all too much. Thought about having their bodies pressed so closely together that Josie’s heat scorches into every part of her, thought about having Josie squirming and writhing against her, desperate for her touch and her lips and her hands.

There’s a small pause, then, where Josie’s head thuds lightly against the door, mouth falling open to release these breathless, little pants that has Hope surging forward. 

She doesn’t reconnect their lips, not yet, instead choosing to dip her head down to the right side of Josie’s neck, trailing a path of kisses there. Her lips and teeth press insistently against the hot skin, and she wants to be cool about it, wants to maintain some modicum of skill and composure, wants to be slow and kind and _gentle_, but then Josie moans so, so fucking loudly when Hope sucks at her pulse point, and she loses all pretense of caution.

Her teeth make a greedy reappearance and she latches onto a sensitive spot just underneath Josie’s jaw, roughly enough that it’ll most certainly bruise later. Hope swirls her tongue out in apology when her soulmate jumps up and into Hope, whimpering at the roughness of it. A part of her likes it, likes the rush she gets from the sound, and so Hope only bites down harder. 

Somehow, by the end of their kiss—can it even be called that?—Hope finds that her hands have slipped down Josie’s back to her bottom, finds that her thigh has parted Josie’s legs and is now prying them apart, no matter how hard Josie is trying to squeeze them together for relief. 

“I wasn’t lying when I said that I want you,” Hope tells her, in a hushed whisper, as she presses a kiss under Josie’s ear. Her fingers flex of their own accord against Josie’s ass and the siphoner mewls out something between a moan and Hope’s name. “I do desire you, more than you know.” 

“Oh? How about...” Josie grins, chest heaving for air, her eyes still shut from bliss or exhaustion or something else, Hope doesn’t know. The tribrid leans in closer, if that’s even possible anymore, to hear the rest of it. “...You show me just how much?” 

Hope sees gold leak into the edges of her vision, painting everything yellow. She blinks quickly, not trusting herself to meet Josie’s eyes until it’s gone. When the color of her own slowly starts to recede back to blue, she grins, too. 

“How about...” she says, in the same tone of voice, still trying to catch her breath. She drops the thigh spreading Josie’s legs. The siphoner whines in response. “You tell me why you’re upset with your girlfriend and trying to hide it by seducing her?” 

Josie huffs out a sigh and pushes Hope off of her. Hope lets herself be shoved away, eyes darkening in concern. 

“Lizzie told me you would like it,” Josie mumbles shyly, as if she hadn’t been dragging her nails over Hope’s neck and panting into her ear a second ago. She presses her legs together like she has to use the bathroom or something. Hope raises her eyebrows at that.

“You talked to your sister about this?” she asks, not knowing if she likes the thought of it or not. 

“Yeah.” Josie wraps her arms around herself, gripping her elbows tightly. She looks so small like this, Hope thinks. She babbles on, “From her experience, or whatever, she said that wolves like angry sex. She has a lot of experience, and I don’t, which is super embarrassing. Not that we’re competing...” 

Hope chokes on her saliva. She sputters out nonsense for a long couple of seconds before calming down and collecting her wits. 

“Jo,” she starts, with no small amount of reluctance, “Your sister hates me. Are you sure she wasn’t trying to sabotage us or something? I wouldn’t put it passed her to—“ 

“No. Stop it,” Josie cuts Hope off, eyes blazing. Hope swallows hard. “I was the one that came to her for advice. I know you two don’t get along, but she was honestly trying to help. She supports us. It’s not her fault that you don’t want to sleep with me.”

The tribrid can’t help the frown that downturns her lips. “Josie.” 

“I’m not trying to pressure you or anything, I swear,” the siphoner continues. “It’s just—I had expectations, okay?” 

Hope’s frown deepens, but her eyes flash gold as she thinks about the images that particular word brings up. “Expectations?” 

Fuck. How much had Josie thought about this? 

“Here.” Josie gestures to Hope’s bed, taking a seat at the edge of it. She pats the sheets and motions for Hope to come over.

“Come sit down.” 

The tribrid hesitates, but listens. 

“I think you already know this, but I grew up reading a lot of fairytales,” Josie says, locking her fingers with Hope’s. She starts to stroke her thumb across the back of her hand almost absentmindedly. “My mom would read them to me all the time. Stories about how soulmates would always find each other. How they’d get married and have children and there would always be a happy ending. Everything would work out, as long as they had each other.” 

Marriage? Children? Hope can’t wrap her head around it. 

“So,” Josie finishes, “I had expectations.” 

The tribrid screws up her face in confusion, still not getting it. “_Expectations_?” she repeats, dumbly. 

“I mean, I knew things wouldn’t always be easy,” Josie tells her. She grabs Hope’s other hand and holds it in her own, too. “But I thought it wouldn’t be like this all the time. Like you’re _constantly_ shutting me out, like you’re constantly refusing to open up. Sometimes I wonder if I’m ever even on your mind. I feel—I feel like the more I get to know you, the more I realize I don’t know anything about you at all.” 

What? But Josie is _always_ on her mind. Always. 

“I-I don’t understand.” Hope shakes her head vehemently, trying to read between the lines. Is Josie breaking up with her? Panic crawls up her throat like wet heat. “Do you, do you want me to propose? If you want children so bad, just give me a couple of minutes and I’ll go find one.” 

Hope swallows, trying to force herself to stop talking so fast, but she can’t even look Josie in the eye. “Wait. How many do you want? Two? Three? Please stop me before I get to four...” 

“No, no, Hope,” Josie cuts her off, face dark with a blush. “That’s not the point.” 

Her voice comes out like a squeak, and she clears her throat in vain. 

“I just want you to communicate with me more,” she says. “I feel like we haven’t been, I don’t know, _intimate_ in a while? I only see you at night, barely during the day in any of my classes. We haven’t even been on a real date. You’re always off fighting monsters with my dad, and the one time I have a chance to help, you yell at me for even trying to.” 

“I’m sorry,” Hope rushes to say. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you, and I shouldn’t have brushed off your feelings back in your dad’s office. If I’m being honest, a part of me ignored letting you come with us because I didn’t want to put you in danger. I just—I just don’t want to see you get hurt. I don’t know if I could ever forgive myself. If I could ever live with myself. If you get hurt, if you die, I have nothing.” 

“Hope.” Josie’s eyes go wide, voice low like a warning. 

“No.” The tribrid shakes her head resolutely. “I mean it. If you die, I have nothing. If you die...” 

She swallows hard and loud, wonders what it means when her stomach clenches, when her heart throbs in her chest. “I die.” 

It’s true. Her heart might not stop beating, lungs might not stop breathing, but Hope has nothing left. Her parents are both dead. Most of her family. She barely sees her aunts and uncles nowadays. Without Josie, she’s nothing. 

“Hope, I...” Josie tries, but she doesn’t know what to say. If Hope dies, she’ll still have her sister. Her father. Her mom. Her friends. Hope doesn’t have any of that. 

“It’s okay, Josie,” she tells the siphoner, a sad smile on her lips. She lowers her voice, then, tries to find the right words. Tries to open her mouth without her throat closing up. 

“Earlier,” she admits, “When I saw the monster target you outside the school, I just panicked. It’s like I lost my mind, I can’t even describe it. And then I took my anger on it out on you. I’m sorry. I can’t say it won’t ever happen again, but I’ll try...”

Hope stares down at her lap, unsure. 

“I know,” Josie murmurs softly, smiling. “You have to understand that I feel the same way about you. Why do you think I lit that _thing_ on fire?” 

The tribrid snaps her gaze up to Josie’s in surprise, and the two share a quiet laugh that simmers down into silence. It’s not awkward, and definitely not uncomfortable, but it gives them both a chance to look at each other. To really, really look at each other—to see past themselves and through the other, to be seen as who they really are: 

Not perfect, but _here_, and trying. 

Hope feels her face grow hot as she continues to watch Josie in the warm glow of the lit candles, as Josie continues to watch her back,the flames dancing like shadows across her face. 

Later, when they go to sleep, and every candle in the room has been put out, Hope will dream of fire and smoke, and when she wakes up, she will not burn in its wake. 

—

“It’s too early.” 

Hope groans and grumbles out a few select curse words underneath her breath as that same irritating, whining voice that never fails to grate on her every nerve rings in her ears. 

It’s the fourth time Lizzie Saltzman has said that exact same sentence. The tenth time she’s complained about that exact same thing. 

“Soooo early.” 

Great. Hope hasn’t even been awake for an hour and the blonde is already killing her. Damn it. 

“Why are you wearing shades?” Josie asks, rubbing tiredly at her eyes as she piles into the back of Alaric’s SUV. Hope follows her inside with their bags and places them on the floor of the car. “Are you hungover?” 

“You should ask your dad,” Hope cuts in, stifling a yawn. It really is too early. Not even five o’clock in the morning, yet. The tribrid is sort of wondering why Alaric had them get up so soon instead of sleeping in. “He knows a thing or two about that.” 

Josie smacks Hope on the arm good-naturedly, but the tribrid only chuckles and slides into the seat next to her. She sits down and places her hand on the skin of Josie’s knee, absentmindedly drawing little circles and patterns with her fingers. With another stifled yawn, she leans back into her seat and shuts her eyes in a poor attempt to fall asleep in the blacks of her closed lids. 

“Shhh,” Lizzie hisses, all but tripping into one of the middle seats of the SUV. She throws herself in like a rag doll and lays slumped down, so that MG and Landon are forced to stand outside and wait for her to sit up. “It’s too early to hear the bane of my existence’s voice.” 

Hope slowly blinks her eyes open and glares at the back of the blonde’s head, but Josie putting her hand on top of her own stops her from arguing. Instead, she presses her lips together in a thin line and watches as Landon and MG get in the car with Lizzie between them.

“—I really don’t know what Marvel is going to do now.” 

“Yeah. But did you see the new Spider-Man movie?” Landon asks, arching his head in a weird angle in order to speak over Lizzie. MG grins and twists his body so that he can make eye contact with the other boy. Between them, Lizzie huffs and crosses her arms. 

“You’re kidding,” MG chuckles out. “It’s been out for a week. Of _course_ I have.” 

Landon—for fuck’s sake—actually squeals. He tightens his fists in front of him in excitement. “That part when Gwen and MJ met for the first time?” 

He makes a fake kaboom noise with his mouth and moves his hands in some kind of weird explosion gesture. 

“So that’s how you spent your time trying to find a way to destroy Malivore? Watching movies?” Hope grumbles underneath her breath, too quiet for anyone to hear. 

She and Landon have not been on very good terms lately, especially since Alaric wouldn’t let Rafael come on the trip with his foster brother. Apparently they’re inseparable or something. Well, not anymore. 

Josie sends the tribrid a sympathetic look, which Hope returns by squeezing her soulmate’s hand gently. She freezes when she feels something shoving against her back and turns around to find Alaric opening the trunk, placing his and Clarke’s bags inside. He then shuts it closed and joins Clarke at the front of the car. 

“I know!” MG agrees, pretending not to hear despite his supernatural hearing. “It totally didn’t deserve the bad review it got on Rotten Tomatoes.” 

“That’s what I thought,” Landon says, running a hand through his slick hair. Hope can’t tell if it’s just greasy or if he used some sort of gel. She forgets all about it as Alaric starts the car and pulls out of the school. “But you have to understand that the critics on that site are just stuck in the 2000’s. They still think Tobey Maguire was the best Spider-Man. Can you believe that?” 

“That’s because he _is_.” MG frowns. Hope rolls her eyes. She and Josie share a fond grin. 

“Dude.” Landon shakes his head. “No way. Do you remember Tom Holland? Duh. No offense to this new guy, I mean.” 

“Can you both stop nerding out for one single second?” Lizzie growls out, exasperated, head in her hands. “If you’re going to act like the two total losers you are in front of me, at least do it right. Everyone knows that Andrew Garfield was the best Spider-Man.” 

And that’s how much of the next ten minutes pass, with the three of them arguing over Marvel characters while Alaric and Clarke make themselves comfortable in the front, arguing over what radio station they want to put on. Hope thinks she can faintly hear Alaric saying he wants to play country music, while Clarke is trying to play some weird kind of gothic, emo track of his. 

“For the last time,” Lizzie says, just as they pass a Leaving Mystic Falls road sign. “Andrew Garfield is the superior Spider-Man. My mind will not be changed.” 

“_Please_, Lizzie,” Josie cuts in right next to Hope, putting herself into the conversation for the first time. Her voice sounds a little more raspier than it usually does. Did she smoke a pack of cigarettes or something before getting in the car? “You just think he’s hot.” 

The blonde snaps her head around. “And you don’t?” 

Josie shrugs. Hope watches her with narrowed eyes. 

MG and Landon share equal looks of disgust. “Isn’t he like fifty, now?” Both girls ignore them. 

“You think he’s hot?” Hope speaks up, feeling a little jealous. She didn’t know that Josie was attracted to middle-aged men with greying hair, but okay. 

Josie opens her mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. She scrunches up her face and tries to talk again, but her voice comes out in a weird, strangled croak of a sound. She massages her throat and pouts. 

“Woah. Are you okay?” Hope asks, turning in her seat to face her soulmate with a look of concern. Josie waves her off, swallowing hard and loud. She winces. 

“Yeah,” she says. Her voice is raspy like it had been before. “My throat’s just a little sore.” 

“Oh,” Hope breathes out, bending over and unbuckling her seat belt so she can reach for the bottle of water she knows she has in her bag. She had also brought some snacks, because why not. “I have some—“ 

“Please don’t tell me that’s a euphemism for something else,” Lizzie interrupts, twisting around in her seat again. The smile on her face disappears as she seems to come to a world-ending realization. “Oh no.” 

Her voice drops five octaves, but it’s still not low enough for everyone in the car not to hear. 

“Mikaelson, did you give my sister an STD?” 

The car halts to such a sudden stop that it sends every person reeling forward and smacking back into their seats.

Josie makes a weird squealing noise while Landon does something that resembles the cacaw of a bird. There’s no way to describe the sound MG makes, and Lizzie manages not to make a sound at all. 

Alaric, having slammed down on the brakes the second he heard his daughter, manages to hit the gas again and swerves onto the side of the road. The only reason they don’t crash into another car in front of or behind them is because it’s too early in the morning for anyone else to be traveling right now. 

Alaric whirls his head around to look at Hope and Josie. His eyes flash in betrayal. “Hope?” 

The tribrid says nothing, too busy choking on air. Eyes wide and lips parted, her eyes dart to her soulmate. Alaric’s eyes go to her, too. 

“Josie?” Josie says nothing either, struggling to breathe just the same as a furious blush takes over her entire face. She swallows hard and winces again, rubbing at her neck like she had a moment ago. 

“Hey!” Lizzie recovers first. “I told you to use protection!” 

She sends a scathing glare in Hope’s direction, lowering her voice as if the tribrid won’t be able to hear her. “We don’t know where she’s been,” she hisses. 

What the fuck does that mean? Like Hope is a sewer rat they found crawling in a gutter? “But I’m a virgin,” the tribrid mutters underneath her breath, more for herself than for Josie. It goes unheard both ways. 

“I-I didn’t, no, we didn’t,” Josie stammers over her words. She collects herself faster than expected. “_No_.” 

“We didn’t do anything, Lizzie,” she bites out through clenched teeth, cheeks puffed and dark pink. “We went to sleep. That’s it. Don’t get me wrong, I _tried_—“ 

She cuts herself off as she realizes that everyone in the car is still listening in. When she realizes that her father is still listening in. Her voice grows small, and she seems to shrink into her seat. “It’s just a sore throat,” she mumbles, at last. 

“Okay,” Lizzie says slowly, narrowing her eyes at her sister like she doesn’t quite believe it but is willing to let it go. “Let me know if you start growing warts all over your tongue.”

Or not. 

“Lizzie!” 

“That means it’s herpes, sis.” 

“Oh my God.” Josie hides her head in her hands. 

“Hey, are you sure we shouldn’t have you tested right now just in case?” Lizzie turns back around to her dad. “We passed an urgent care a couple of minutes ago, do you think you can turn back around?” 

“No,” Alaric answers, gripping the steering wheel tight. They’re still parked on the side of the road, not having moved an inch. A fly lands on the man’s windshield and buzzes happily away. 

Hope, who had been scrambling to get Josie a water bottle a minute ago like the whipped girlfriend she is, is now chugging the water down her own throat and fanning her face. Some droplets make it passed her lips and drip down her neck in her haste, but she actually couldn’t fucking care less. 

Though, she doesn’t miss the way Josie watches the few trails of water disappear underneath her shirt, but maybe that’s just because she’s thirsty. Hope offers the rest of the bottle to the siphoner, but Josie shakes her head for some reason. Weird. 

Everyone else politely looks away as Alaric somehow finds the will to start the car. He moves back onto the road, and then they’re on their way again. It’s three or four hours later that Hope falls asleep out of exhaustion, head resting on Josie’s shoulder. 

Their hands stay sloppily intertwined, still resting on Josie’s knee, sides pressed so close together that their legs touch and burn into each other. Josie feels a little warmer than she usually does, but Hope doesn’t particularly mind, the cool air conditioning in the car enough to stop her from turning away from the heat. 

It’s not an hour after she falls asleep that she feels her soulmate shift underneath her, stretching out her limbs and coughing out into her elbow. Well, more like hacking her lungs out into her elbow.

Hope startles up at the vicious sound, but when she blearily opens her eyes, Josie is no longer coughing and looks fine. Hope watches her lean over to pull a blanket out of her bag. A blanket, that the tribrid finds all-too familiar. 

_Hope’s_ blanket. 

“Is that mine?” Hope stretches her lips into a sleepy, sly smirk, unable to stop herself from remembering all the times Josie has used the blanket during their many sleepovers. She didn’t know Josie had taken it. Hadn’t even noticed, really. 

“Nope.” Yes. The siphoner doesn’t meet Hope’s gaze, almost like she’s embarrassed or something. She pulls the blanket on over her body, snuggling into its warmth and shutting her eyes closed, maybe to avoid her soulmate’s curious own. 

“Wait.” Hope frowns. “Are you cold?” 

Logically, Josie shouldn’t be. It’s not cold outside, quite hot actually, and Hope is almost sweating despite the vents in the back of the car blowing cool air in her direction. 

Josie shakes her head, but the small action comes with an unconvincing shiver. 

“No,” the brunette denies, through chattering teeth. 

Hope’s frown deepens. She sits up in her seat and pins Josie with a strange look, her sleepiness gone. If she had been tired earlier, now she can barely feel it.

“Are you sure?” Hope asks, eyes narrowing with suspicion. Josie looks a little too pale for her liking. A little too small and fragile. Hope is almost scared to touch her, she thinks she might break. 

“Mhmph.” 

Hope sighs, unbuckling her seat belt. Whatever. She’ll be fine if they get into an accident. Well. Probably fine. 

Hope reaches up and tries to bring Josie closer, if only so she can get a better look at her.

“Come here,” the tribrid grumbles, after she tries to pull Josie into her own body and the siphoner swats her in the face without even glancing in her direction. 

“_You_ come here,” Josie says playfully, but she sounds a little delirious, like she isn’t aware of her surroundings at all. Her eyes are still closed. She then pulls Hope’s blanket up to her neck and coughs again, swaying dangerously from left to right with the force of it. 

Hope steadies her with two hands on her shoulders, and only then does she realize the heat Josie is radiating. It feels like she’s sitting next to a fucking furnace. How hadn’t she noticed it before? 

Well, maybe she had. Maybe she had just dismissed it at the time. 

Hope bites the inside of her cheek and brings the back of her hand up to Josie’s forehead, pressing it softly against the skin there. 

“You’re warm.” Hope frowns. 

“_You’re_ warm,” her soulmate shoots back with a giggle, which abruptly gets caught in her throat. She covers her mouth with her hand and coughs again. Her eyes flutter before remaining shut. 

“No, Jo,” Hope says, eyebrows furrowed together in worry. She gently strokes the brown strand of hair hanging in front of the siphoner’s face, pushing it back behind her ear. “You’re burning up. Do you feel okay?” 

“Yeah.” Josie smiles and leans into her touch. “I’m just tired, I promise.” 

“Alright,” Hope drags the word out, not believing it one bit. She glances at the time on her phone. “We still have a couple of hours, why don’t you try to take a nap until we get there?” 

“Okay.” Josie nods and readjusts her blanket, so that part of it is strewn onto Hope’s lap, too. “Nap with me?” 

Hope doesn’t need to answer, because Josie passes out a second later. This time, her head rests on Hope’s shoulder, skin scorching into the fabric of the tribrid’s shirt. She gently pushes Josie off of her along with the blanket, but she makes sure that their hands stay connected. 

“Hey, Lizzie,” Hope whisper-yells, trying to get the blonde’s attention in front of her. Lizzie ignores her until Hope kicks the back of her seat three times in a row. 

“What?” she snaps, not looking very happy. 

Hope ignores her attitude, too concerned with her soulmate’s wellbeing. “Are you feeling okay?” 

She doesn’t know much about the extent of their twin sympathy-pain bond, but she might as well find out. 

Lizzie just rolls her eyes. “I have a small headache but other than that I’m fine,” she says, adding a second later, “I’m sure it’ll go away when you stop talking to me.” 

The blonde turns back around, but Hope doesn’t let up. 

“Is your throat sore?” she asks. This time, Lizzie doesn’t even bother answering. She pointedly raises her earbuds in Hope’s direct line of sight and turns the volume to its highest setting.

Next to Hope, Josie stirs and mumbles something about carrots in her sleep. Hope reaches over and gently feels her forehead again, just to check, wanting to be proved wrong more than anything. Instead, her suspicion is confirmed. 

“I think Josie’s sick,” she says, out loud, mostly to herself. Her lips form into a thin pout and she leans back into her seat, resolving just to watch Josie sleep until the next time Alaric pulls over. 

The next time comes an hour later, when the man pulls into a gas station. MG and Landon immediately scramble out of the car to get snacks, with Lizzie dragging herself along after them. 

Just as Hope decides to let Josie sleep and stay inside the car, the brunette begins to wake up. She sluggishly stretches her limbs and makes a weird, little noise between a cough and a yawn. 

“Are we here?” She blinks open her sleepy eyes to look out the window, hair sticking to the light sheen of sweat on her forehead. She immediately hides her face in the crook of Hope’s neck to shield herself from the light. 

_Fuck_. Hope thinks. _That was really cute._

She almost melts into a puddle on Alaric’s precious leather seats.

“No,” she tells Josie softly. She helps the siphoner sit up when her head suddenly lulls forward and takes her with it, too heavy for her body. Josie makes another weird noise that half-resembles a thank you. “Your dad just pulled over for gas. Do you want anything from the store?” 

Josie nods, but she grimaces in pain when she does it, so Hope wonders—not for the first time—if she has a headache. Not good. 

“Some energy drinks, maybe?” the brunette asks, lips pulled into a tiny pout. “The little five hour ones?” 

Hope bites the inside of her cheek, not liking the idea of Josie having an energy drink at all. Nope. She won’t get her anything with caffeine. 

“Please?” Josie adds, sensing her soulmate’s hesitation. It’s so cute. Almost too cute, but not enough to convince Hope. 

“You need to get some sleep, though,” she says, placing her hand on top of Josie’s blanket-covered thigh. 

“Pretty please?” 

Oh, God. 

Hope has to look away from the warm set of puppy eyes Josie is flashing at her. She has to clench her teeth through the litany of _yes, yes, yes_ trying to crawl up her throat.

“No,” she decides, not unkindly. “But I’ll get you some cough drops and tissues. I’ll see if they have tea.” 

Josie squints her eyes and glares at her. 

“Ass—“ Cough. “—Hat.” 

Hope pecks her on the cheek and, after making sure Josie is safe and wrapped comfortably inside her blanket, gets out of the car and heads inside the mini mart. 

Landon and MG are standing together on one side, playing around with a slushee machine as Lizzie pours herself coffee next to them. The tribrid makes a beeline for the food, but all the veggie wraps are cold and Hope isn’t sure if that’ll be good for Josie’s throat. She grabs Josie some kind of plant-based burger that’s at least lukewarm and a small pack of tissues, finding a bag of cough drops near the front. 

They only have cold tea so Hope settles for two room temperature bottles of water. She pays for her things and manages to make it out before Landon, MG, and Lizzie. 

Josie’s face is buried into her seat when Hope finds her. She picks her head up slowly and, wow, the tribrid has never noticed the dark circles under her eyes until now. She wants to press the tips of her fingers to the skin and make Josie feel better, but she knows she can’t. 

“Here.” Hope hands her the tissues and cough drops. “I got you a burger, too.” 

“Oh.” Josie pushes the wrapped burger back into Hope’s hand, a warm flush to her cheeks. Well, at least her face has some color. She was beginning to look like a ghost. “I don’t eat meat—“

“I know,” Hope cuts her off, uncapping one of the bottles and taking a sip. “It’s that beyond, plant-based crap you like.” 

Josie opens her mouth to argue. The tribrid gets there first. 

“And I don’t care if you’re not hungry, you’re eating it,” she says, since she knows Josie hasn’t eaten anything for a few hours now. She hadn’t even had breakfast. 

Josie pouts but unwraps the burger, before pausing once more. Hope turns to her, exasperated, but the siphoner isn’t looking to complain again. Instead, she asks, voice timid, “Did you get anything for yourself?” 

Um. No. 

Hope shrugs. 

“I have my own snacks I brought from the school,” she tells Josie, just to reassure her. She had actually already eaten all of them on the drive here while Josie was asleep, but Josie doesn’t need to know that. 

“Snacks?” Josie frowns. “That’s not good enough. Let’s just share mine.” 

Hope eyes the burger. That sounds like literally the worst idea possible. 

“It tastes better than you think,” her soulmate adds, perhaps sensing her reluctance. She splits the burger in half and gives the bigger portion to Hope, who takes a small bite. 

Well. 

It does not taste better than she had thought it would. Hope politely shoves the burger back into Josie’s hand, ignoring the pouty, offended look the brunette gives her. 

“Are you feeling better?” she asks, clipping her seatbelt into place as everyone gets back inside the car. Hope throws the wrapper from Josie’s burger at the back of Lizzie’s head, who hands her father a bag of barbecued chips and then Alaric starts the car again. He grumbles underneath his breath, something about some kind of rule where he doesn’t let his kids eat in his car, but that doesn’t seem to stop him from sneaking a few chips into his own mouth. 

“What are you talking about?” Josie fixes her with a confused, little scrunch of her eyebrows. Hope rolls her eyes playfully and bumps their shoulders. 

“Oh. Come on, Josie,” she says, asking her to drop the act. “I know you’re sick.” 

Josie shakes her head, even as she rubs a tissue against her nose. 

“I’m not,” she claims, voice rough and gravelly around a mouthful of cough drops. Hope cringes, but the siphoner seems to shake it off. “I told you, my throat’s just a little sore. If anything, I can sleep it off. It’s not that bad.” 

“Really?” Hope scoffs. “You didn’t even bat an eye when I handed you the cough drops.” 

She gives Josie an unimpressed look. “You’re sucking on three right now.” 

The brunette pinks, then appears to choke on one. 

“Never mind the fact that you have a fever,” Hope continues, “and you can’t keep your eyes open for longer than a second at a time.” 

At that, Josie snaps her eyes wide open, from where they had been falling dangerously closed. It’s a futile effort. She blinks a couple of times and her eyelids become heavy once again. 

“Fine,” she admits, head lulling against the back of her seat. She rubs at her throat before speaking. “But it’s just a cold, I promise.” 

“Okay,” Hope says slowly, unconvinced. She worries that she might need to take Josie to a hospital, but she’ll probably be able to help with some kind of healing spell when they get back to the hotel. “Is there anything I can do to make you feel better?” 

Josie grins sleepily, cheeks still flushed with a little bit of color. She no longer looks like a ghost. “I kind of want to lay down. Do you think you could scoot over and let me put my legs on your lap?” 

“Sure.” Hope smiles and moves over, but Josie’s legs don’t really end up in her lap. Instead, her soulmate all but drapes herself over Hope and then promptly passes out. 

They spend the rest of the car ride like this, with Josie’s limbs too long to fit in the back and Hope underneath her silently suffering. She can’t move without feeling like she’ll accidentally wake Josie up, but she doesn’t have to worry for too long. Soon, she falls asleep, too. 


End file.
